PCA eyes grants for coconut-based enterprises

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) is laying the groundwork for the provision of grants to farmers’ cooperatives with established coconut-based enterprises. The PCA recently held a coconut investment summit at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati during which investors and cooperatives with established coconut-based operations were enjoined to establish market-linkages.

Food security chief Francis Pangilinan, who currently oversees the operations of the PCA, said an investment task force composed of representatives in the private and public sector would immediately be set up to serve as the broker for inquiries between parties interested to pursue investments in the local coconut industry.

PCA’s services currently focus on production support to increase volume output and enable smallholder farmers to recover from damages caused by natural disasters.

These programs include tree fertilization, participatory coconut planting program and maintenance of coconut seed farms and seed gardens where new cultivars are grown.

The agency also assists in the organization of coconut farmers into cooperatives and provides technical assistance for the integration of high value crops with coconut trees to provide alternative sources of incomes for farmers in the event that their trees are damaged by calamities, diseases and pests.

The agency likewise hosts trade missions and market matching activities to promote the products of cooperatives and help manufacturers source raw materials.

This would be the first time the agency would provide grants to established enterprises to expand their businesses and add value to their products.

PCA administrator Romulo Arancon said the agency extend grants to recognized cooperatives that are able to show, through their business plans, the sustainability and profitability of operations. The agency may extend funding support of as low as P1 million to as high of P10 million “depending on the needs of the cooperatives and the magnitude of the coconut-processing activity.”

Cooperatives should have established operations and adequate capital to ensure the sustainability of the grant program.

“Microenterprises might not be viable or profitable, so there really is a need for a business plan to ensure that the operation is sustainable,” he said. “Because this is not all charity. They should have their own stake. They should have their own savings, their own management experience, their own capital build up. The PCA may provide the processing equipment, the technical assistance and also link them to the market,” Arancon said.

While the PCA would prioritize the grants to established coconut-based enterprises, Arancon said the agency is now actively working with some 700 small cooperatives to increase their incomes through intercropping and integration of livestock into their farming systems.

Pangilinan said small cooperatives may eventually be able to put up their own enterprises and therefore qualify for grants.

“We are now working on integrated farming systems for these cooperatives and this may eventually become the universe for provision of grants,” he said.

“Based on the coconut roadmap, we realize that while fertilization, intercropping and replanting are critical to productivity and better yield, we need to have value-adding to raise income. We have to transform coconut-based farms from subsistence farming to bring them towards viable farming,” he added.

A follow-up summit may be held within six months, during which the PCA would follow through on proposed synergies coursed through the investment task force that would be composed of representatives from PCA, local government units (LGU), the business sector, farmers’ cooperatives, as well as government financial institutions such as Landbank.

The PCA central office, said Pangilinan would soon issue a memorandum to its regional offices to accept grant applications and business plans from cooperatives.

“They (cooperatives) can submit business proposals to PCA regional offices. We have coconut municipality development officers. We will just have to issue that memorandum that these proposals for support and funding should be collated and accepted by the PCA,” he said.

Pangilinan said the agency is striving to establish by yearend several templates for the provision of grants.

The PCA recently signed a memorandum of agreement with various farmers’ groups, LGUs and the business sector for the grant initiative.

“We need to do a lot of information dissemination. Farmers are the most risk-averse until they see incentives. So we need to be able to provide the necessary support,” said Pangi-linan.

The PCA has so far identified 12 cooperatives that may qualify for the provision of grants. Some of these cooperatives just need vehicles to transport their produce.

The grants that would be given would be sourced from coconut development projects of the PCA as part of the Integrated Coconut Industry Roadmap.

Coconut oil is among the country’s top 10 farm export commodities along with fresh banana, tuna, pineapple products, tobacco, desiccated coconut, seaweed and carrageenan, copra oil cake, centrifugal sugar, and manufactured tobacco.