Report compiled for the 2007 Paris International Agricultural Fair
All you need to know about coconut
The issues
Smallholders facing new challenges
Coconuts are available all year round, and coconut palms are thus often a vital part of a family's wealth.
Coconut palms are grown by smallholders, who are generally poor and faced with many difficulties: low copra prices, ageing plantings, risks of lethal diseases and problems with converting to other crops.
Growers often put off replanting coconut palms that are too old to be sufficiently productive, as they do not have the means to invest in new plantings that will not bear fruit for between four and ten years.
Furthermore, coconut plantings are often devastated by lethal yellowing disease, which is currently affecting Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean. Their unlucky owners do not yet have any effective way of controlling the disease.
Once coconut plantings, which are often set up on poor soils, have disappeared, the possibilities of switching to another crop are very limited, which can ruin growers and prompt them to move elsewhere.
The millions of smallholders account for 96% of the area planted with coconut worldwide. More than 80% of the total area is in Asia: India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The rest is split between Africa, the Americas, Oceania and the Caribbean.
Plantings rarely cover more than four hectares. The vast majority of growers have an average of one hectare, ie barely more than 100 palms.