It is to remembered that when the CAPC visited the State last month and met political leaders and government officials, the state government had demanded an MSP of Rs 4,600 for ordinary copra and Rs 4,800 for ball copra.

The commission has recommended to the Centre that in the wake of copra selling at over Rs 1,000 lesser than the MSP, it would be meaningless to have a fresh and higher MSP fixed for next year. Also, with Nafed procuring copra incurring a loss of over Rs 150 crore, it was unable to raise the price to the MSP.

Also, the Centre's raising the import duty on palmolein import has had little impact on the coconut prices. For the increase in import duty will raise the price by a mere Rs 3 and it will be much lesser than the price of coconut oil.

Sources say the only way out to help the farmers is by promoting production of value-added products and not depend solely on oil from the nuts. With this in view, the Coconut Development Board is firming up plans to popularise tender coconut as also desiccated coconut and coconut milk and cream.

In the wake of the falling coconut oil prices which have spelt disaster to the growers and also Kerala's economy, Centre is to soon convene a meeting of MPs from the South to discuss the issue. This was during an assurance given to Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker PM Sayeed by minister Pramod Mahajan on a discussion in the House on November 23.

It was also suggested that the import duty on palm oil be raised by 300 per cent so that the coconut oil producers get some respite. In the House, petroleum minister Ram Naik said that a team would be sent to Malaysia in the wake of a report from there that a new method to produce petroleum from coconut had been developed.

Meanwhile, coconut oil price was quoted at a low of Rs 30 per kg in the Kochi market on Thursday. There was no activity on Wednesday, a day after the Centre announced the hike in palmoil import duty.