In his blog, Between Honesty and Hope, Edicio Dela Torre shares with us his slide presentation of a very promising Philippine government economic program called "Coco Hubs" or Integrated Coconut Agro-Industrial Hubs.
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| Slide from: Edicio Dela Torre, "Coco Hubs", in Between Honesty and Hope |
I also wish to share below the comments I have made in Tito Ed's Facebook wall about this program and other related economic issues at the levels of local production, national policy-making, and international market pricing of coconut as a global commodity. I trust that the other commenters on Tito Ed's Facebook post do not mind sharing the exchanges.
Edicio Dela Torre I posted the slides in my Wordpress site. They are easier to read as you scroll down the page.
Bonn Juego Impressive and promising initiative. Good luck po! Wish I had known this before. We -- together with Finnish, British, Danish, etc. -- colleagues were looking for Philippine academic researchers/ research institutions just last month working on coconut commodity in a global value chain analysis. I couldn't identify academics doing this; but there are experts like you in the government and NGOs. We could have got tips from you. Hopefully, next time.... For now, I'll share your blog post link to them. Btw, you may also try opening an account at scribd.com or slideshare.net to upload your PowerPoint slides.
- Edicio Dela Torre Will take up your suggestion, add a bit more text and post my talk.
- Edicio Dela Torre Bonn, we need your help in looking at the global value chain for coconut as part of the vegetable oil market. For example, there's talk of Rotterdam (and New Jersey?) determining the price of crude coconut oil. Is this really so? ON the other hand, the growing market for VCO, coco water, coco sugar, and even desiccate coconut seem to be still fluid.
- Bonn Juego Hi Tito Ed Dela Torre! For now, we have written a research proposal for EU-funding on linking small farms with global markets; hope we get invited to proceed to the second round so we could expound more and get a better chance of getting funded. Though it's an academic endeavour, it doesn't prevent us from reaching out and including government and NGO researchers/people later on. If granted, we'll contact you.
Philippine coconut is just one of the case studies we proposed to study -- our partners in the consortium also have their respective commodity case studies from four Asian and African countries: Philippines, Thailand, Mozambique, and Malawi.
Our initial focus is on the 'production' aspect. But thanks for the reminder that we really couldn't understand well the commodities' position in the global value chain without looking into the 'financial' question (especially on commodity pricing and trading). We do not have, however, an economist in our team.
I tried to do a little bit of research when we were doing the proposal. My sense is that it'll be a lot of work to include issue of global commodity pricing in our case, not least because it might also be controversial since the research may end up to be investigative as well, not just exploratory, as it would require studying the activities of giant commodity trading firms such as the infamous Vitol Group, which has headquarters in Geneva and Rotterdam, and reportedly, a production plant in the Philippines.
Initially, I looked into data on the commodity market available at FAO, UNCTAD, and business pages. What I found out is that 'coconut' per se is not yet considered a tradable commodity whose prices are determined by the global market, but only as an 'oilcrop', particularly, as you mentioned, the vegetable oil and also the bio-diesel derived from coconut.
But who knows, in the near future, with the power and magic by these global commodity firms and market price speculators, the other commodity forms of coconut that you mentioned 'VCO, coco water, coco sugar, and even desiccate coconut' may also be subjected to global commodity pricing in Rotterdam.
In the Rotterdam index, it appears that prices for vegetable oil from both Indonesia and the Philippines are lumped together. They claim that the price index in Rotterdam is, of course, based on the law of supply and demand. as well as competition. For instance, during typhoon season in the Philippines, such as during Yolanda/Haiyan, price of vegetable oils go up. Competition also plays a factor in the pricing -- not really based on competition between countries, but a competition between goods (oilcrops) themselves. There are times when there are higher demands for soybean oil or rapeseed oil, than coconut vegetable oils. Demands for coconut-derived bio-diesel also decline when prices of crude oil are down. - Bonn Juego I think it is necessary to have a 'global' perspective of our local endeavours -- to also include an understanding of the workings of the global market players, such as those who control prices of commodities with all their 'innovative' strategies in making profits through financialization of raw material commodities. Otherwise, all these 'global value chain' analysis of commodities will be nothing more than the old colonial relationship and process of dependency. At the same time, this global understanding should inform our policy planning at the local production level.
- Bonn Juego You may want to follow the FAO data here on vegetable oils and other oil crops: http://www.fao.org/economic/est/est-commodities/oilcrops/en/
- Bonn Juego Some info here on the Vitol Group: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../Top-ten-global-oil-and...
- Bonn Juego And also this: http://www.businessinsider.com/presenting-the-worlds-16...
Jana Ricasio As a consumer here in the West, all I can say is that coco products esp VCO and drinking coco (mixed with all sorts of drinks) is soaring. Phils would do well to reinvest fast on rehab of & new plantations. The unique health properties of VCO is the selling pitch.- Edicio Dela Torre Maraming salamat Bonn! Will follow up your leads.
- Bonn Juego Forgot the orig report.... Here: http://www.reuters.com/.../us-commodities-houses...
J.a. Carizo Bonn Juego is right. Try niyo po scribd. But an e-book will be great also
Ceres P Doyo Would appreciate receiving the slide show via email. Pwede, Ed? Emma Alday et al would be happy to have this.
Red Galura Bonn Juego, Wilmar acquired and operates the coco oil mills of Danding Cojuangco (one in Gingoog and the other in Roxas/Dipolog area). I am not saying that Wilmar supplies palm oil products to smugglers and connive in undervaluations and under-declaration of import volumes. How does one explain the huge disparity in the reported palm oil products exports of Indonesia and Malaysia to PH and the recorded imports by PH. [Similar to rice exports of Vietnam/Thailand to PH and the recorded imports of PH from the two countries]. Together with Cargill, they dominate the Rotterdam CNO market.- Bonn Juego Salamat po, Kuya Red Galura, sa input. It seems that the Singapore-based Wilmar has been concentrating its efforts on China and the vast commodity sources and markets that the rest of emerging Asia offer, while earning serious money in dollars and euros in the world's financial centres at the Atlantic.
Indeed, all these financialization of commodity production should be regulated in favour of the food/commodity producers and consumers -- the farmers and workers -- themselves. Note that the agricultural derivatives market being played out in the trading centres in Europe and the US, mostly by commodity speculators who have main interests in price changes rather than actual local production needs and processes of developing countries, have greatly contributed to the cause of the food price crisis in 2008. Thus, they threaten the vision towards food security/sovereignty.
Perhaps, Tito Ed's Coco Hubs project may also need to spell out the 'financial' aspect in relation to its 'agro-industrial component', and how this integrated zone is coordinated at grassroots, national, and international levels. Still, however, I prefer a focus on local 'productions', multiplied hundreds across the Philippine rural areas, linking agriculture and manufacturing industry, as it is designed in this Coco Hubs Zone now, which is key to the country's development.
