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by Dr. U. P. de S. Waidyanatha, Chairman, Coconut Research Board

The second of September has been pronounced as the Coconut Day by the Asian & Pacific Coconut Community (the inter-governmental organisation for coconut) as from 1999, and annually commemorated in many coconut growing countries. On this occasion of the third anniversary of the Coconut Day, it should be opportune to reflect on several interesting epithets that this crop has earned during its long history.

Coconut has been in existence for millions of years, widely spread both in the eastern and western hemispheres. It has a long history of over 2000 years in the coastal areas of India and Sri Lanka. Growing in about 11.6 million ha across some 86 countries, it forms an integral part of the livelihood of many communities, providing food, oil, wood, fuel, shelter, cash and many other benefits. The multiplicity of its uses has earned it the epithet 'tree of life' ('kapruka'). Its ability to grow and produce in harsh environments - under conditions of drought, high salinity and in marginal soils may also have contributed to this epithet. This 'tree of life', according to a Sri Lankan proverb, has 99 uses, but ancient records apparently refer to some 360 uses out of which the Philippine Coconut Authority has listed some 300.

Paradoxically the tree of life is also referred to by the epithet 'lazy man's crop'. It can, however, be argued that there is in fact no paradox but logic, for if it gives virtually everything, one would naturally be inclined to be lazy! This connotation also might have been a consequence of the fact that 96% of the world's coconut production is from smallholdings less than 4 ha, largely owned by poor farmers who lack the resources for good management and hence spend little time on the crop. In fact it has also been referred to as the 'poor man's crop'.

Coconut oil, yet remains the main coconut commodity in the world market, having enjoyed a pre-eminent position as an oil crop for some 150 years, and until about three decades ago. The global depression beginning in 1929 resulted in cessation of investments in new coconut plantations. Then the second world war saw several large coconut producing countries under military occupation which lead to a severe shortage of coconut oil particularly in the US. This led to intensified research efforts in annual oil crops to complement the supply of cotton seed and maize oils. The result was the birth of the soy oil industry as million of acres were planted to this new crop in the Mid West. By the end of the war, soy oil had taken up much of vegetable oil market share previously held by coconut oil.

Then when coconut oil re-entered the US market after the war, at a relatively low price, the soya oil lobby sought market strategies to denigrate and destroy the coconut oil market in the US. Over the period 1950 to 1970 the soy lobby used selected results from animal feeding studies that were to its advantage in a massive anti-tropical oils campaign. Biased experimental results were translated into persuasive messages to the public and especially to the medical profession, and the epithet 'artery-clogging tropical oils' was coined on coconut oil and palm oil.

In fact the campaign was against all saturated fats based on the 'lipid hypothesis' that was propounded during this period in an attempt to explain the massive increase in the incidence of heart disease after the second world war. The hypothesis simply is that excessive consumption of saturated fats lead to elevated blood cholesterol increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases. It was reported that the anti-saturated fat campaign in the US was so profound that Americans then feared saturated fats more than they feared witches!

There was a consequent drastic change in the kind of fats that Americans ate. Butter consumption had dropped from 18 pounds to 10 lbs/person/year, margarine largely filling the gap, and vegetable oil (mostly polyunsaturated - soya, corn, cotton seed oils) consumption had more than tripled from just under 3 lb/person/year to about 10 pounds. Coconut oil consumption had dropped drastically, but the incidence of heart disease had continue to increase almost exponentially from 1930 to 1970. So saturated fat could not have been the villain! And the lipid hypothesis is now being seriously challenged.

The decreasing demand for coconut oil in the world vegetable oil market has made many to refer to it as the 'sunset' industry. Low (oil) productivity, supply vagaries and high cost of production, and quality assurance constraints are virtually insurmountable problems faced by the industry. Low productivity of coconut vis a vis oil palm has seriously afflicted the coconut oil industry. At the current world average of approximately 500 coconuts/ha/year the equivalent oil yield should be only 0.6t/ha/yr as against average yields of palm oil exceeding 3t/ha/yr and potential (research) yields exceed 100t/ha/yr. Physiologically productivity, (carbon sequestration) of oil palm is well beyond that of coconut, and even with optimal genetic improvements coconut yields can never match oil palm yields.

The future potential of coconut is not in the oil only but in the multiplicity of products that can be turned out from nearly and parts of the tree, too numerous to be discussed here. This potential unfortunately remains largely unrealised. What we seem to lack are ideas/imagination, resolve and vigorous and relentless marketing of the many attractive products that can be turned out, some of which are illustrated in the picture.

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