World Coconut Day 2018

Coconut palm the ‘Kalpavriksha’ is Nature’s great boon for the healthy and wealthy life of mankind. Coconut is known to have been cultivated for thousands of years in our country and is an inevitable part of our culture and tradition, religious and social practices, folklore, food and drink. In folklore, coconut is the fruit which provides nutrition and is our heritage and legacy.

Every year September 2 is celebrated as World Coconut Day to commemorate the formation day of Asian Pacific Coconut Community (APCC). APCC is an intergovernmental organization of 18 member countries mandated to promote, coordinate and harmonize coconut developmental activities of the Asian Pacific region to achieve maximum economic development.

The theme World Coconut Day 2018 is Coconut for Good Health, Wealth & Wellness.

• India stands first in global coconut production and productivity.
• The annual coconut production of India is 2437.80 crore 
• Coconut productivity is 11616 coconuts per hectare.
• The crop is cultivated in 20.98 lakh hectare.
• The crop contributes Rs 34,100 crore to GDP.
• More than one crore people depend on this crop for their livelihood.

The Coconut Development Board is implementing the Technology Mission on Coconut programme under which 480 coconut processing units have been established with a capacity to process 274 crore nuts per year.

9633 Coconut Producer Societies, 740 Coconut Producer Federations and 67 Coconut Producer Companies have been established in the country.

The Coconut Development Board’s ‘Friends of Coconut Tree’ (FOCT) Training Programme and the ‘Neera Technician training programme’ and has given training to more than 60998 youths and 2637 Neera Technicians.

We know that coconut oil has medium chain fatty acids which is disease resistant and heart friendly and virgin coconut oil can prevent premature ageing. Research has shown that virgin coconut oil is effective in curing diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer diseases.

The government has increased the Minimum Support Price of Milling Copra from Rs 6500 per Quintal to Rs 7511 per Quintal and for Ball copra from Rs 6785 per Quintal to Rs 7757 per Quintal. Not only this, the government has declared up to 5% incentive in the export value (FOB) in its new Foreign Trade Policy for 2015-20 for the promotion of coconut product export.

Income earned from export of coconut products was Rs 3975 crore during 2004-14, which increased to Rs 6448 crore during 2014-18. With the efforts of Modi Government, India has started exporting coconut oil to Malaysia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Till last year, India used to import coconut oil from these countries. Besides, for the first time, India is exporting large quantities of dry coconut to US and European countries.

Agriexam.com