BY JOJO DE GUZMAN

BALER, Aurora — Coconut farmers should take advantage of the overwhelming demand for coco coir in China. This was the advise made by Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap as he told coconut farmers to target the export of at least 500,000 metric tons of coco coir by mass-producing.

In his visit here last month Secretary Yap said he has committed up to 100,000 metric tons of coco coir to Chinese businessmen when he visited the Jangnan Food Market in China last November.

Accompanied by Sen. Edgardo Angara, Gov. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo and local officials, Yap inspected a P19-million geotextile plant in this town.

Geotextiles are synthetic permeable textile materials used with soil, rock, or any other geotechnical engineering material.

The said facility, which utilizes coconut husks as raw materials, could produce 40 tons of coconut fiber per month and is a partnership among the provincial government, the Bureau of Post-harvest Research and Extension (BPRE) and the office of Angara.

Yap said coco coir, which costs $150 per ton, could reach a value of $600 a ton if converted to geotextile. Last year, he said, the country exported only 10,000 metric tons of coco coir in China.

Angara said the plant initially provided jobs to 200 families in barangays Buhangin, Calabgan, Ipil and Reserva. He said their aim is to generate employment to 5,000 families.

He said some of his friends in China have committed to buy up to 500,000 metric tons of coco coir, including practically everything that will be produced in the plant. "This is a gold mine for our local coconut farmers," he said.

The provincial government has provided an initial P250,000 to jump-start coco fiber development in the province, according to Angara-Castillo.

The facility employs coco technology involving the application of coir-based erosion control products useful in arresting soil erosion, protecting eroded slopes, rehabilitating degraded landscapes, ecological restoration and combating other forms of land degradation. This is done by twining and weaving coconut waste fibers into a mesh called coconet.

In China, it is used to cover the soil and prevent desertification. In the country, the lowly coconut husk has been turned into an award-winning product by the BPRE.

Geotextiles are also known as geosynthetics, which are generally associated with high-standard, all-season roads but can also be used in low-standard logging roads.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) are undertaking a P30-million joint project that will involve the establishment of fiber processing zones in the country that will produce export-oriented geotextiles among others.

The Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) has earlier acquired a $100-million soft loan facility from the state-controlled China National Technical Import and Export corporation (CNTIC) for its Coconut Commodity Development Project (CCDP).

The loan aims to bolster the local coconut industry’s efforts to develop value-added products for the export market.

A huge part of the loan was to go to the development of some 400,000 hectares of coconut lands to enable coco farmers to commercially pro-duce geotextiles, coco-peat and other high-value coconut products for export to China.