Coconut oil price to remain firm

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fe Bureau: Kochi, May 28 2011, 01:13 IST

Coconut oil prices are likely to remain firm due to supply constraints, says a report by the Agricultural Market Intelligence Centre of Kerala Agricultural University. The latest report says that the production of coconut has been lower than estimated earlier because of area reduction and declining productivity. Global production of nuts is also on the lower side leading to lower crushing of coconut oil.

According to the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community, coconut production has been affected globally by climate changes during the last two years, of which the rise in temperature has hit the palms more hard. “Production in all major coconut producing countries like Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka has been reeling.

Sri Lankan production has recorded a 15-year low of 2.533 billion nuts in 2010 as against the annual average production of 2.7 billion nuts. The rise in domestic price has compelled the Sri Lankan Government to ban export of coconut and felling of coconut palms, and even arranging imports of nuts,” K Satheesh Babu of AMIC said.

With the Sri Lankan sources drying up, importers in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Middle East countries has started outsourcing fresh nuts increasingly from India. This has kept the price of coconut firm despite the onset of “peak season” in the major producing states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, he added.

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