The Union Minister of State for Food and Consumer Affairs, Prof K.V. Thomas, will inaugurate the 45th Cocotech meeting of the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community (APCC) at Hotel Gateway on Monday.
Cocotech is the permanent panel on coconut technology of APCC member countries which is held in two years. The meeting provides a common platform for producers / progressive farmers, processors, machinery manufacturers, exporters, other stake holders and scientist’s and research workers from member countries.
The theme of the meeting to be held from July 2 to 6 is ‘Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development of the Coconut Industry.’ Around 200 delegates from various countries are expected to attend the meeting.
The meeting will cover a comprehensive range of technical sessions/topics on the success stories of model coconut farmers and small to medium scale coconut processors/entrepreneurs.
New technologies and research and development update on coconut based farming systems, product diversification and coconut processing as well as developments in marketing of coconut products are some important aspects to come up for discussion.
Along with the meeting, a coconut festival providing opportunity to showcase various value-added products, technologies and machineries from member countries will also be arranged.
The session also includes a one-day field visit on July 5 by delegates to model coconut farms, coconut processing centres and interaction with progressive coconut growers from traditional coconut growing states.
The vision of APCC is to improve the socio-economic conditions of the coconut growers, processors, traders and all those who depend on this crop and crop based industries, in the member countries through proper promotion, collaboration and harmonization of various coconut related activities.
Comments:
The COCOTECH meeting is being held at Cochin when the farmers are hit the worst farm gate price.The current price is Rs 3/ nut and there are no takers even at this price.Coconut is left unharvested as wages exceed the probable income.The vagaries in farm gate price is a matter of concern and COCOTECH should address the issue.The minimum support price offered by the Government is not reaching as procuring agencies are not in the field.There is chaos in procurement .The cluster approach to get the benefit of scale as proposed by the Coconut Development Board needs to spread out.Benefit of value addition will be realized only when common marketing channels are activated.Coconut industry is at crossroads with little attention paid to management of crop due to negligible prices of nuts.The present crisis should pay way for better solution.
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