Latest update March 29th, 2024 12:56 AM
Oct 23, 2016 AFC Column, Features / Columnists
Today marks the culmination of Coconut Awareness Week 2016 and an extremely informative, entertaining Coconut Festival. For the first time in the history of Guyana, we dedicated a special week to this uniquely versatile fruit that grows so abundantly in Guyana’s fertile soils.
The week was chockful of activities in Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo, all of which were designed to help Guyanese better appreciate the coconut tree and its fruits, to see it as a viable means of income, and a channel through which their creative juices could flow.
The possibilities for expansion of our coconut-based industries are innumerable, both for food and non-food products. The coconut also plays an enormous role as a driver of agro-tourism and value chain development.
Guyanese know about coconuts. We grew up drinking nutritious coconut water from the young nuts, eating sugar cakes, cassava pone, buns, using multipurpose coconut oils (virgin and edible) and coconut milk as a vital ingredient for our favorite dishes, e.g. cook-up rice and Met-a-gee.
Artists, craft producers and fashion designers, especially those who specialize in natural fibres, get very creative with the coconut shell, and seeds, and cross sections of the tree trunk, the branches and the pods. The jewellery and interior decorations the designers produce would attract good revenue in parts of North America, Scandinavia and the Pacific where the coconut is unfamiliar. Some designers have already found these lucrative markets.
This weekend’s seminars and symposiums would have informed our coconut growers, coconut water exporters, jewellers and processors, of new methods for handling and preserving the highly perishable coconut water. They would have learnt as well about different products from other coconut-growing countries like India, products such as mats for poultry pens woven with coconut fibre. Actually, knowledge sharing was one purpose for inviting participation from neighbouring countries.
Our young enquiring minds are now expected to be motivated to conduct all kinds of investigations into higher-yielding farming techniques, and more in-country research into what the pundits around the world are now calling the Superfruit. Engineers, researchers and innovators are already developing more technologically advanced machines and implements to pick coconuts, to replace the arduous and dangerous pastime of climbing coconut trees to gather nuts.
Actually, it was only in the last few years that the rest of the world got turned on to the coconut and its health benefits. In Guyana, coconuts rank third after rice and sugar in acreage cultivated. An estimated 28,000 acres of coconut trees are currently under cultivation across the country with an average annual production of 90 million nuts. This is according to Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder. Coconuts, he said, have been the main non-traditional export for Guyana, generating an annual income of US$4.6M. De-husked coconuts account for 76% of this income, crude coconut oil 9%, coconut water 8%, and copra 5%.
In the world of Tourism, Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin labeled Guyana as a “slowly unfolding enigma, randomly exposing its many hidden treasures”. He said that the coconut has been a lifelong companion to generations of Guyanese and today it is still an intriguing product.
The global pundits agree that there are over 67 proven uses for coconuts and the coconut tree. We’ve learnt about coconut wine, coconut flour, animal feed and construction materials. Our people, we hope, will be galvanized to pay more attention to their coconut trees and groves and to go after new markets around the Caribbean and Europe. The products are many and some need very little capital to produce, e.g. virgin coconut oil, fibre matting, pointer brooms and table tops from the tree trunks.
The possibilities are many, but here are a few lucrative coconut-based business ideas from www.coconutboard.nic.in:-
COCONUT CHIPS
Thinly-sliced crispy coconut meat which may be sweetened or salted and are handy as a ready-to-eat snack. It’s prepared by thinly slicing the meat of 11/12 month-old nuts into strands, soaking the strips in syrup, draining and drying in a dryer or oven, and serving or packaging when cooled.
COCONUT FIBREBOARD
Coconut fibreboard is a useful and innovative product. It is used in buildings and construction, inside or outside. Coconut fibreboard is a panel product manufactured from coir. These cost-effective products can be used in making ‘false’ ceilings, doors & door frames, furniture, cupboards, wardrobes, tables, chairs and beds. The product is very popular because it is attractive, natural and smooth on both sides. The manufacturing process is simple.
THE WONDER DRINK – COCONUT WATER
Coconut water is tender, delicate and very perishable, but it has enormous potential as a health drink. Naturists and researchers in the health care industry have already identified the restorative ingredients in coconut water. This is one of the most profitable coconut-based business ideas for entrepreneurs. It has strong functional value with its low sugar, sodium and calorie content. It is cholesterol-free, has more potassium than four bananas, and contains enough electrolytes to re-hydrate you super fast.
Dubbed “Mother Nature’s sports drink” by marketers, the demand is skyrocketing worldwide, propelled by celebrity endorsements. It is also promoted as an agent that helps the body recover from a host of conditions e.g. hangovers and kidney stones.
COCONUT HONEY & SYRUP
Coconut honey contains many growth-promoting trace elements besides glucose, fructose and levulose. Coconut water is filtered, evaporated and blended with a little golden syrup to produce coconut honey, a palatable nutty-flavoured breakfast food, soft drink additive and sweetener.
Coconut syrup is a translucent, free-flowing liquid made by cooking coconut milk with an equal amount of refined sugar and disodium phosphate. It is used as a topping for bakery products or as a mixer in alcoholic drinks, or it may be diluted in water and used in rice cakes and other delicacies.
VIRGIN COCONUT OIL
Virgin coconut oil is extracted from fresh coconut meat without heat or chemicals. It is said to be the “mother of all oils”. It is rich in medium-chain fatty acids, particularly lauric acid and is a trove of minerals, vitamins and antioxidants. This is one of the least expensive value-added coconut-based business ideas.
RETRACTION
The AFC Column of Sunday 16 October, 2016 had unwittingly intimated that Resident Representative of the IDB, Sophie Makonnen, and Canada’s Ambassador to Guyana, Pierre Giroux are Directors of the Guyana Oil and Gas Association.
The Diplomats are not associated with the GOGA.
The AFC apologizes profusely for any inconvenience this misunderstanding may have caused.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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