does any one know the price of coconuts from merchats seems like for the amount of land my wife has, she is not getting much of a return on it and i do not believe the mother in law as they are the one harvesting and selling
I never thought I would be reading a post asking the price of coconuts My wife's father inherited a coconut farm many years back and she did say it was not very profitable, maybe due to the hiring of people come harvest time. Hope someone here can help.
A quick internet search tells me that each coconut tree will yield just £4.80 for the producer all in no expenses taken out for labour.
Coconuts are not a good cash crop unless you are prepared to process the nuts yourself - or can be part of a co-operative. Cold-pressed coconut oil does give a decent return if you invest on the equipment.
My wife has 1/2 hectare... yield is 3,000 to 4,000 peso every 3 or 4 months... of which the coconut pilot (picker to you and me) gets half. They used to get a lot more than that and a constant supply of fruits. Unfortunately after her father died no one could be inclined (you can obviously die up there quite easily) to travel up to the "mountain" (read jungle) to check what's going on. We're told the 1/2 hectare is on a slope and that's why the yield is now so slow - was even worse after Yolanda... so weather etc. can be another factor. Basically same old story, when Papa (who had a big knife that he wasn't afraid to use) was alive they got a good yield... now it's in the hands of the young ones, most of whom cannot even climb the tree, they don't get much
Its a good discussion point. What are you selling? Is it the actual coconut for fruit? Old one? Or copra (dried coconut meat)? The yield per hectare would also vary depending on the state of the farm - do you regularly fertilize and remove weeds? How old are the trees? Are they healthy (recen reports show there are coxonut beetles infesting the farmers). If your wife's family has an old plantaton, the govt have a program to help replace old tree. I think they pay the farmer 7peso when you buy a seedling and another 7peso if the same seddling is alive and planted after a year (not sure if the govt have updated the figures to entice more farmers to replace the mother tree sinxe based on a study, most of the coconut trees in ph are 40-50 yrs old which is past its prime).
http://www.pca.da.gov.ph/index.php/12-industry/120-price-watch-2017 The above is the website of the ph agency in charge of this matter. Worth checking it out.
Thanks - wife says it's copra - as I said we don't know what they do - as little as possible I suspect - It's on some kind of agricultural lease... and it'll be old from 1980 or earlier. The age of the trees and the decreasing yield would tie in with the father's death (2008) . Thanks for the link.
If I had a coconut farm the first thing I`d get is one of these.. I`d probably go into the cooking oil side but in able to be productive and independent and profitable, there are one or two machines I`d purchase.. Lots of products that can be produced from the whole coconut...Oil,charcoal brickettes,soap,flour,juice and lots more.. The problem is your mrs has to manage it herself..If you rely on others any project is doomed probably before it begins.
Thanks @Bootsonground perhaps I'll try that tomorrow morning... after she's finish washing and feeding the kids (and preparing lunch) I'll tell her to pop up the mountain and check the coconuts
He he.. You`d be surprised at how many kano`s think that because the wife has a few hundred producing coconut tree`s in the province,there is 3/4,000 Pesos (after expenses) going in the bank once a month!! lol.
thanks for all your answers, some are helpful, but none actually say how much a kilo for just the nuts you harvest and sell, i would take it they do no work to the product before selling and i expect nothing much would be earn't from a harvest, but from two hectares you would expect a small return
I dunno - I do know when we harvest our own nuts here in the garden half of them are no good anyway... so it's all a bit hit and miss. And I can tell you I pay 15 peso for a small coconut to be ground out for flakes for cooking at the market - not sure if that helps you anymore