Report compiled for the 2007 Paris International Agricultural Fair
All you need to know about coconut
What is CIRAD doing?
Although coconut provides a living for 10 million smallholders on 10 million hectares, the sector is currently in great difficulty: copra, the main coconut product on the world market, is less competitive; there is competition from palm kernel oil, which is also a lauric oil; and lethal diseases, particularly lethal yellowing, have developed recently and are capable of destroying coconut plantings within a few years.
Of all the major scientific issues surrounding the future of coconut worldwide and that of the people who depend on it, organizing pest and lethal disease control is the top priority.
The sector's survival and that of its stakeholders depends on this. The best-known and most widespread threat is lethal yellowing, or yellowings, since given the extent of its spread, we do not yet know if it is the same disease that is found worldwide.
While looking for biological control methods that are within the reach of smallholders, CIRAD is also working to diversify the crops grown in affected areas, to facilitate a change of direction for the growers concerned and provide them with incentives to stay where they are.
Improving coconut-based farming systems with a view to tailoring them to producers' requirements and production situations so as to ensure greater added value (processing, storage, export) is also a matter of constant concern for CIRAD.
Its research is conducted in partnership with local organizations and the main coconut networks, COGENT and APCC.
This section looks at CIRAD's main lines of research.