COPRA REMAINS COUNTRY’s MAJOR AGRICULTURE EXPORT
Coconut copra. Photo credit: www.jebasexports.com
Copra continues to be one of the country’s major agriculture exports.
Chief Produce inspector for CEMA Patterson Siliota says copra is still one of the major agriculture despite a drop in production the past few years.
Mr Siliota says there is no data collected for coconut downstream processing and they are hoping to address that with a new coconut and coconut products regulation.
“Though it dropped compared to few years ago, copra production is still ongoing. Last year about eighteen thousand metric tonnes was produced for export, this excludes the milled. At the moment regulations only covers copra, so CEMA was only able to collect data on copra, the coconut that went through mills and VCO, we were no able to get the data because of absence of regulation.”
CEMA and various stakeholders initiated and organized a second “coconut and coconut products regulation consultation” in the country Monday this week.
The consultation aims to come up with a regulation that will address issues the coconut industry faces in the country.