Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. is pushing for amendments to the Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund Act.
The move aligns with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s call to revitalize the country’s top agricultural export sector, he said.
“We must revise the law to focus the trust fund’s resources on the most critical needs, particularly replanting,” Tiu-Laurel said Monday.
“Many of our coconut trees are senile. If we don’t replace them now, we risk losing the future of the industry,” he said.
Coconut trees over 50 years old produce less than half the yield of younger trees, which typically yield 80 to 100 nuts annually. While methods like salt fertilization can temporarily increase output, replanting is considered the only sustainable long-term solution.
The Philippines is the world’s second-largest coconut producer, with about 3 million farmers cultivating 3.6 million hectares.
Despite this, the sector remains underproductive. Only 134 processing plants operate nationwide, many at 50 percent capacity, and the country’s 60 oil mills run significantly below their combined capacity of 3.7 million metric tons due to declining farm output.
The industry annually exports an average of $2 billion in coconut products, including crude and refined oil, desiccated coconut, copra meal and coconut water, derived from an estimated 14 billion to 15 billion nuts per year.
Tiu Laurel said improving farm yield would enable the Philippines to better capitalize on growing global demand, especially in Europe.
In 2024, the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) planted 8.6 million seedlings, exceeding its 8.5 million target and quadrupling the two-year average, despite the El Niño phenomenon.
This figure, however, still falls short of President Marcos’s goal to plant 100 million trees by 2028. For 2025, the government allocated P1 billion for planting and replanting and P1.8 billion for fertilization.
