Value Addition for Agricultural Sustainability: The Lagos Coconut Narrative

Coconut Tree

For any country or state, value addition to agricultural products means more foreign exchange earnings, food sufficiency and safety as well as increased Gross Domestic Products (GDP).

For the farmer, value addition can only mean more money and improved livelihood.

In Africa, Kenya records about 18 aircraft flying out of the country with agricultural products to Europe on a daily basis, which has earned them the appellation, “Africa’s biggest agriculture produce exporter’’.

Since President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, priority is placed on agricultural activities leading to a boost in commodity production, agribusiness and agro-enterprise developments, food security, mechanisation and commercial farming across the country.

No wonder the administration introduced “The Green Alternative’’. It is the outcome of an intensive consultation process which started in November 2015 through April 2016 by the Agriculture Promotion Policy 2016-2020.

It engaged stakeholders from farmers groups, investors, processors, lenders, civil servants, academics among others.

The Green Alternative is built on the successes and lessons from the Agriculture Transformation Agenda (ATA) of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

Its necessity is the vision of Buhari’s led administration to build an agribusiness economy capable of delivering sustained prosperity.

At the onset of the Green Revolution by this administration, states were encouraged to select and develop crops of their comparative advantage to further drive a non-oil economy, and Lagos State chose COCONUT.

The activities of the Lagos State Coconut Development Authority (LASCODA) under the Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture and how they are seriously taking steps to develop the value chains around coconut to increase Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state, is noteworthy.

One very huge step taken by the state government under Governor Akinwumi Ambode to achieve consumption of wholesome and healthy foods is by including coconut in the diet of Lagosians, which leads to coconut value chain development.

Lagos is known for its coconut heritage producing about 70 per cent of the national output of 267,520 metric tonnes, meaning that Lagos alone produces de-husked nuts of 187,264 metric tonnes of coconut annually.

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr Olayiwole Onasanya, says that until recently, coconut was becoming moribund and needed a total overhaul from plantation rejuvenation to value addition and planting of hybrid and improved seeds.

According to Onasanya, farmers were at some point losing interest in the coconut business and they only maintained the subsistence farming level neglecting many derivatives of up to 150 from coconuts.

“In the past years, coconut has been a crop, although, I will not say that has been neglected but it has been a crop that pre-1990’s, there were a lot of moribund plantations, some of them very old that are yielding very poorly.

“Therefore, farmers hardly looked at them except when it has fruits, they will harvest and make some meagre amount. It was being practised at a subsistence level at that time.

“In 1999, what we had was to draw out a plan to improve coconut production and to do a lot of rehabilitation, and then plant highly improved varieties that will yield well and also diversification of coconut.

“The past three years was to rehabilitate over 10 hectares of coconut plantation grooves; we have also looked at coconut from the angle of being a miracle crop that you can produce 150 derivatives from such as bread, oil, artwork, milk, motor industry and others.

“On IGR, by the time we do what we are doing in the next three years, the coconut will increase contributions to the IGR of Lagos State, it is not that coconut does not contribute but its contribution is very minimal,’’ the permanent secretary said.

One of the major achievements by the state government is to roll out the Eko Coconut Bread, where it partnered with 10 bakeries for the production of about 500 loaves per bakery on a daily basis.

The government also empowered the bakeries with inputs like Tricycles, two Kiosks each, 250,000 Bread wrappers each and cash.

Dr onasanya said the initiative has increased marketing and believability in coconut by 15 per cent within a short time and also the art of using shells for decoration has also improved coconut shells markets by 10 per cent.

“We have yet to tap into 100 per cent commercialisation of coconut, we have worked on coconut oil; coconut water; coconut chips and designated coconut, and if we sustain the tempo, we will achieve a whole lot.

“The bread will not be limited to Lagos State alone, we have plans to extend to other states, as we did with Lake Rice which Ogun is feeling the impact, so we are sure that Eko Coconut Bread will become a staple in Nigeria.

“The Eko Coconut Bread initiative is gaining weight across the state and apart from the 10 initial bakeries engaged, more bakeries are showing interest to work with us and that will trickle down to increased production of coconut,’’ he said.

“Apart from the economic advantage of growing coconut, there is also the ecological advantage. We are talking of climate change and coconut can help to reduce the impact on the environment.

“Coconut is a crop that is carbon sync, and we are working with Lagos State Parks and Gardens (LASPARK) so that they can use coconut for beautification.’’

On the hazards of farming coconut, the permanent secretary said that falling down of the nuts from the tree could lead to death when it hits a person’s head standing underneath, but now, the different varieties of coconut have helped to cushion the mishap.

He said the misfortune was common with the West African Tall variety: adding: “But research has gone beyond that, we have improved West African Tall, the hybrid and the dwarf varieties.

“We do not see farmers planting the West African Tall again, what we have now is improved that is shorter and produces better, then the hybrid that is shorter and the dwarf.

“We also do a lot of sensitisation, our extension agents work with farmers to let them know the tell-tale signs of the coconut colour to let them know when it is due for harvest.’’

Another area where the state through the ministry of agriculture is throwing its weight is the servicing of pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies needing extra virgin coconut oil, coconut milk and coconut SAP.

Coconut sapping, according to the Department of Science and Technology of Trinidad and Tobago’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute of 2007, is a fresh oyster white liquid obtained from the tender unopened flower with neutral PH.

According to the report, each tree can yield up to one to three litres of sap daily. On two hectares of coconut plantation, 300 hybrid coconut varieties can produce 3.5 metric tonnes of coconut sugar and 205 gallons of coconut honey.

The General Manager of LASCODA, Mr Dapo Olakulehin, says that the potential of coconut had yet to be utilised to the fullest because coconut milk is still regarded as an elite commodity, SAPPING and coconut water.

Olakulehin says: “We are developing the coconut sap; sap is just like how you get palm wine from palm tree but what we get from coconut is called sap.

“In palm wine, we call it tapper but in coconut, we call it sapping for farmers who get liquid from the coconut tree, not the nut itself.

“The sap is of high industrial use as a binder for pharmaceuticals and currently, all pharmaceutical companies in Nigeria are importing sap.

“However, in the last six months, a major pharmaceutical and general household company in Lagos which I would not like to mention the name has started working with us and they have been training our farmers on the sapping technology.

“The company is ready to off-take from farmers once they perfect the art of sapping. Sapping is not common in this part of the world; it is only done in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. The company is collaborating with the state government to reduce capital flight.

“A few weeks ago, two Indonesians were brought to Badagry to train farmers on the sapping technology. We hope that when our farmers make the first sapping harvest to this company, the world will know that sapping can be done in Nigeria.’’

The general manager said that the development would also snowball into a lot of things that will ensure economic development and reduce the foreign exchange flight.

He said that there are other developments made to increase processors of coconut milk and water.

“We have coconut milk which is being developed; the milk is good and better than animal milk in any form.

“That particular value chain is being marginally developed; we only have one processor producing the coconut milk for now.

“Coconut milk is regarded as an elite product because when you consume coconut milk, there are some health challenges that it will address.

“Another area is the coconut water, there used to be a belief that if you consume coconut water, you will become dull; the point and reason behind that myth are because they do not want children to play under the coconut tree so that it will not fall on their head.

“Beyond that, science has proven that coconut water is one of the best antioxidants, the state has keyed into the potential of that value and we now have some processors of coconut water but they are having challenges because you cannot preserve coconut water for long.

“So, we are working on the technology to ensure that the processors preserve the coconut water for longer; the technology is in other climes in Europe and other Asian countries where the water can be on the shelf for months.

“Whereas in Nigeria it is only for less than a week but we’re in constant talk with the processors to key into the modern technology and before then, their market is still on demand and it is not yet a popular product for Nigerians,’’ he said.

Olakulehin also highlighted some of the challenges facing adequate harnessing of the potential therein, including processing site location and rejuvenation of plantations among others.

“According to the World Atlas Magazine statistics, in the last decade, there was a huge increase in the utilisation of coconut by 500 per cent globally.

“That shows that there is pressure on coconut products and it shows that people are now going back to using coconut.

“The coconut we have in Lagos cannot meet up with the demand of processors and that is why we are driving rehabilitation since Lagos is environmentally conducive for coconut production.

“Since our existing plantations are ageing, we are collaborating with the Ministries of Local Government, Tourism and Environment aggressively develop new plantations; again there is pressure on land and they cannot locate industries within the neighbourhood.

“It has to be within industrial or semi-industrial areas, and that is why we are working seriously with the Ministry of Trade and Investment to see how coconut processors can be incorporated into technology incubator centres at Agege and Development Center at Igbese, Ikorodu.

The LASCODA boss, however, warned that the pressure on coconut was giving room for adulterated coconut oil, milk and water.

“We are working with the Consumer Protection Council in Lagos State under Ministry of Commerce and Industry to see how to regulate the products in the markets.

Mrs Owolabi Amodu, Managing Director of Floffy Dough Bakery, one of the 10 bakeries in partnership with the state government on Eko Coconut Bread production, says that the acceptance and sales volume has been very impressive.

Currently, each of the 10 bakeries produces an average of 500 loaves of coconut bread, so, daily about 5,000 loaves are produced and jobs have been established through this value chain.

Mr Femi Oke, the Chairman of the Lagos State Chapter of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), says the developments in the area of adding value to coconut has increased livelihoods of farmers in the state.

Oke said that members who were coconut processors and farmers were happy and ready to work with LASCODA to ensure that the efforts yielded the desired results.

He, however, listed some of the challenges Badagry coconut farmers and processors were faced with from very bad road network to funds and modern technology.

“Coconut processors and farmers are excited with the new developments going on as regards value addition in the sector and we are hopeful that this will mean increased production of the commodity.

“For the state government to site the coconut development main office in Badagry is a good sign because that is the home of coconut.

“On rejuvenation of plantations, the government is doing a lot because I know of a five-hectare plantation in Epe currently where new varieties were planted.

“However, farmers are not happy because of the road network which is in a terrible state; processing machines like de-shelling, and coconut meat extractor and inadequate funding among others,’’ he said.

From the foregoing, it is not only in Badagry and the coastal areas that coconut trees grow. They also do well in the hinterlands.

If it so, what should be on the lips of the governments where the precious tree grows should be how to get the variety that can give high yield in their area.

Again, they should think of how to ensure that they used modern technology to produce coconuts, explore and exploit all its value chains for the growth of their economies, employment for youths and improve their IGR.

Source:(NAN)

In This Story:#FemiOke #LASCODA #Olakulehin #OwolabiAmodu #OlayiwolaOnasanya #LASPARK #Coconut

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