Coconut

History

Introduction

• The importance of the coconut palm has been recognised from very ancient times.
• The palm, which is generally believed to belong to the Indian Archipelago, is now found to be growing prolifically in the tropical region and more especially in Malaya, the Eastern Archipelago, the islands of the West and Central Pacific Ocean, Ceylon and the coastal tracts of India.
• In puranas it is said "the coconut was brought to India from Nagaloka.
• While according to certain traditions, the coconut is said to have been introduced into India from Ceylon.
• That it has great antiquity in India, is also evident from the fact that the part of the Malabar Coast, extending from South Kanara to Cape Comorin, is known as Keralam meaning the land of coconut, and the coconut industry is intimately associated with the rural life and occupation of the people of the Malabar Coast.
• The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera L. with its tall, slender and uniformly thick stem and massive crown with large number of leaves, bearing bunches of nuts in their axils is one of the most beautiful and useful trees in the world.
• It perhaps yields more products of use to mankind than any other tree.
• It is no wonder then that the palm is looked upon with reverence and affection by the inhabitants of the coconut producing countries and given such eulogistic epithets such as Kalpa Vriksha (Tree of Heaven), the Consols of the East, Mankind's Greatest Provider in the Tropics, Tree of Life, Tree of Abundance, Tree of Plenty, etc.
• Each and every part of the coconut palm is useful to man in one way or another.
• The raw kernel is an important article of food.
• The oil from the nut is used in cooking and in the manufacture of soap and other toilet requisites.
• The coconut oil cake is a valuable cattle feed.
• Fibre from the husk is used in the manufacture of coir ropes, mats and matings.
• The trunk, otherwise called 'porcupine wood', is used in house construction and furniture making.
• The leaves after plaiting are used to thatch houses. The juice obtained on tapping the inflorescence is rich in sugar and is converted into jaggery, sugar, vinegar and sweet or fermented toddy.
• The products of commercial importance are copra, oil, cake, desiccated coconut and fibre.
• The importance of the palm lies in the fact that not only does it supply food, drink and shelter, but it also provides raw material for number of important industries.
• It is also essentially a crop of the small landholder who obtains cash for the purchase of necessities of life by the sale of coconut and coconut products.
• The coconut has also the singular feature of yielding under suitable conditions, the valued nuts almost at monthly intervals all through its life of about 80 years.
• On account of all these utilitarian and desirable features, it has been rightly called Kalpavriksha the Tree of Heaven the tree that provides all the necessities of life.
• The coconut is, therefore, a unique tree among the economic plants of the tropics.
• The coconut industry is intimately connected with the economic and domestic life of the inhabitants of the coconut growing countries.
• It provides employment and perhaps the only source of livelihood to tens of thousands of people.
• The importance of the coconut as a source of food is indeed overwhelming.
• In India, coconut is consumed in the form of tender nuts, raw kernel, copra, coconut oil and desiccated coconut.
• Since dish made from the coconut furnish fat, protein and some vitamins, they counterbalance some of the deficiencies inherent in the predominantly starchy foods consumed in the countries concerned.
• Some of countries derive substantial revenue from the coconut industry.
• In India, coir products exported abroad earn the much needed foreign exchange.

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Dispersal Of The Coconut In The World

• Having originated at some place in South East Asia, the coconut would now appear to have moved eastwards towards the Pacific and further into America.
• Towards the west it moved to India and Madagascar over the calm tropical waters.
• Although it is often referred to as an 'ocean-going' nut due to its capacity to float and to germinate even after floating in sea water for 110 days.
• The possibility of its dispersal through the agency of water alone looks altogether improbable.
• The seed-nuts in salt water lost their viability after several days, due to infiltration of salt water into the husk.
• Therefore, the agency of man must also have been responsible to a large extent to its introduction and spread.
• This is significant from the fact that the Spaniards introduced it into the West Indies and in the southern shores of the Caribbean Sea.
• The Portuguese introduced it into Bahia and other parts of Brazil Polynesian seafarers spread it to the different islands of the Pacific, the Arabs disseminated it to the African coast and the Tamils together with the mariners of the Bengal coast distributed it into the lands of the Indian Ocean.

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Coconut Production Scenario

• Coconut provides sustainability to a million families and livelihood to about ten million people in India.
• Coconut contributes over Rs.8,000 crores annually to the national GDP and earns about Rs.1700 crores of Foreign exchange by exports of coir and coir products.
• Coconut is grown in more than eighty countries of the world and in India, cultivated under varying soil and climatic conditions in seventeen states and three union territories.
• The present (2011-12) area under coconut in the country was 2.07 million ha and the production has reached to the level of 14.94 million nuts.

World Scenario

• During Independence, India ranked third in the world with a production of 3 billion nuts.
• During seventies, the position of India dropped to fifth.
• But the situation improved rapidly after formation of the coconut development Board in 1981.
• Our country climbed back to the third position again by mid eighties.
• in 1995-96 India became the largest producer of coconut in the world.
• Although, coconut is grown in more than 80 countries, Philippines, Indonesia, India and Srilanka contribute about 78 per cent of the world production.

Stages In Progress

• The production of coconut was 3.28 billion nuts during 1950-51.
• Upto 1981 coconut development was looked after by Directorate of coconut Development and now coconut Development board (CDB) is looking after the developmental activities.
• From 1981 the developmental programmes assumed a new dimension.
• The thrust area included creation of permanent production potential, stepping up productivity, developing processing technologies for product diversification and improving market situation.
• Along with traditional southern states CDB also extended its activities to the semi-traditional (Orissa, Assam, Bhopal, Tripura, Andamans and Goa etc) and Eco-coconut (Manipur, Nagaland, Bihar, Gujarat, M.P, Rajasthan etc) areas.

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Multiple Uses Of Coconut Palm

Leaves

• Coconut leaves are plaited and used for thatching houses, for covering retting pits, making partition.
• Walls in separating different lots of husks retted in linear trenches, for making baskets, etc.
• Plaited leaves are also made into several types of head-gear and are worn by poor men and women while out in the field.
• Unplaited coconut leaves are also used for shading seedlings, mulching nursery beds and for fencing, etc.
• The dry leaflets are tied into small bundles and used in villages as country torch in the night.

Midribs of Leaves

• e midribs of leaves are utilised for making brooms, baskets, fish traps, etc. Petioles, bunch stalks, spathes, stipules, etc. These are mostly used as fuel.

Trunk

• The trunks of old coconut trees are utilised as timber for house-construction.
• The quality of the timber is improved if it is soaked in saline water for some time.

Edible parts

• The apple or cotyledon developing during germination and the tender bud are delicacies.
• The tender husks of some varieties are edible and are sometimes pickled.

Coconuts and coconut products in medicine

• Several coconut products and parts of the palm are used for medicinal purposes.

Some Facts and Figures about Coconut:

• Life of tree - 80 - 100 Years
• Age at first flowering - 7-10 Years
• Number of leaves in the crown - 30
• Fresh number of leaves that open per month - one
• Period for which the leaf remains on the tree - 30 months
• Number of bunches on crown - 12
• Number of bunches that open every month - one
• Number of nuts harvested per year - 60
• Interval between opening of female flower and harvest of the nuts - 12 months
• Time taken for seed nut to germinate - 3-4 months
• Quantity of kernal per nut - 12 oz.
• Weight of copra per nut - 5 oz.
• Oil in copra (Solvent). 72%
• Weight of cake from 100 nuts 12 lb
• Quantity of sap from tree per day - 50 oz.
• Sugar in sweet toddy - 14-16%
• Weight of fibre from one nut - 21/2 oz.

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Area and Production

• Nearly three fourth (73.3%) of the world production is from India, Indonesia and Philippines. Sri Lanka with about 4.97% of the production occupies fourth position. Taking 1961 as the base year, growth over the period (1961-97) has been 146.7% in area and 101.67% in production.
• There has been a declining trend in productivity in spite of tremendous advancement made in coconut research.
• Among major producing countries, Thailand and India have recorded excellent growth in production during the last few decades.
• In the early nineties, India ranked third in the world in area and production among 86 coconut growing countries.

Coconut production - Present status

• World production of coconut during the year 2012 is 60048837 metric tonnes from an area of about 12114141 hectares.
• Among more than 80 coconut growing countries nearly three-fourth of the production (73%) is from India, Indonesia and Philippines.

World coconut area, production and productivity in 2012

Country	Area ha.	Production in Mt	Productivity in Kg/Ha
Brazil	257742	2888532	11207
China	33000	282000	8545
Dominican Republic	28000	162545	5805
Ghana	60000	305000	5083
India	2132240	10560000	4952
Indonesia	3000000	18000000	6000
Mozambique	84000	270000	3214
Myanmar	42500	430000	10117
Papua New Guinea	223000	900000	4035
Philippines	3573806	15862386	4438
Srilanka	394840	2000000	5065
Thailand	217000	1100000	5069
Viet Nam	145000	1250000	8620
World	12114141	60048837	4956

Source: FAOstat citation

• India ranks first in production of coconut in the world . which is 24.5% of the world production and 15.5% of the area at the global level.
• The major coconut growing state in the country is Kerala with an estimted area of 905.5 thousand ha. and production of 5338.0 million nuts.
• Kerala is followed by Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Composite Andhra Pradesh. The crop is grown in 17 states and 3 Union Territories in India
• Out of the estimated total production of coconut in the country approximately 48% is used for edible purposes, 31% for production of milling copra which is crushed for extraction of oil, 8% for conversion into ball copra, 11% for tender coconut and the remaining for the manufacture of non-traditional products, cultural and social purposes.

Purpose	%
Edible	48
Milling copra	31
Tender coconut	11
Ball copra	8
Non-traditional	1

• Coconut industry in the country at present is on a revival path for product diversification and value addition.
• Till 1980s, technology development for product diversification and value addition was not given adequate attention in tune with the increases in production and productivity.
• With the formation of the coconut Development Board in early eighties technological research is treated as a priority area and development of appropriate processing technologies in coconut industry is a priority area of development.
• Due to this, diversified coconut products emerged into the market which in turn paved the way for better utilisation of various parts of coconut palm.
• Broadly, the coconut industry can be grouped into two major categories viz., traditional and non-traditional. Till recently, copra making, oil extraction from copra and coir industry have been the major traditional coconut based industries in the country.
• Desiccated coconut is also a traditional product in the country, even though the total annual production is only around 30,000 tonnes per year. It is even relevant to-day and hence it is quite pertinent to make an in-depth study on the traditional industries and to deliberate on their present status and future prospects.
• Under the product diversification programme, the Coconut Development Board initiated and developed a few technologies for the production and commercialisation of some of the non-traditional products during Nineties.
• The technology for preservation and packaging of tender coconut water, coconut cream, coconut cream powder, natural vinegar from coconut water, nata-de-coco etc. is ready for transfer.
• These technologies developed by the Board were transferred to some entrepreneurs for commercial production, and the products are being introduced and promoted in the domestic market.

Production and productivity in India since independence

• Area under coconut as well as production has been showing a steady increase during the last five decades. Area under coconut was 0.63 million ha during 1950-51 and increased to 1.91 million ha during 1998-99.
• During the same period production increased from 3282 million nuts to 14925 million nuts and productivity from 5238 nuts/ha to 7821 nuts/ha. Growth over the period 1950-51 to 1998-99 was 204.58% in area, 354.89% in production and 49.31% in productivity.
• The tremendous increase in area, production and productivity during the period can be attributed to remunerative price, availability of improved inputs including quality planting materials and the results of developmental work initiated by the Coconut Development Board.

Area, Production and Productivity of Coconut

Year	Area (000'Ha)	Production (000' Tonnes)	Productivity in Tonnes/ha
2001-02	1259.5	24456.1	19.4
2002-03	1337.2	23161.4	17.3
2003-04	1484.7	27925.8	18.8
2004-05	1523.9	28787.7	18.9
2005-06	1569.2	29174.6	18.6
2006-07	1743.0	28600.0	16.4
2007-08	1795.0	34658.0	19.3
2008-09	1828.0	34391.0	18.8
2009-10	1835.3	36577.3	19.9
2010-11	1863.0	42339.0	22.7
2011-12	1907.0	41482	21.8
2012-13	1992.2	45343.6	22.8

Source: Coconut Development Board

• During Independence, India, ranked third in the world with a production of 13 billion nuts.
• The palm is cultivated mainly in the coastal tracts in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal, Pondicherry, Maharashtra and in the Islands of Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar.

All India statewise area, production and productivity statistics of Coconut

States/ Union Territories	2011-2012
	AREA ('000 Hectares)	Production (Metric tonnes)	Productivity (Nuts/ha)
Andhra Pradesh (Composite)	142.00	1270.00	8944
Assam	20.80	194.80	9365
Bihar	15.20	97.50	6414
Goa	25.70	89.00	3463
Gujarat	20.90	217.90	10426
Karnataka	511.00	3784.60	7406
Kerala	766.00	3973.90	5188
Chattisgarh	00.80	06.30	7875
Maharashtra	21.00	120.00	5714
Nagaland	00.90	00.30	333
Orissa	53.90	258.00	4787
Tamil Nadu	430.70	4515.60	10484
Tripura *	06.20	18.10	2919
West Bengal	29.10	252.90	8691
A &N Islands	21.80	72.30	3317
Lakshadweep	02.60	48.70	18731
Pondicherry	02.10	20.00	9524
All India	2070.70	14940.00	7215

Source: Coconut Development Board

Productivity in India

Area , Production and Yield rate of Coconut in Telangana during 2011-12

District	Area In Hectares	Production in Lakh nuts per Ha	Yield in Nuts /ha
1	2	3	4
Kurnool	15.00	1.19	7934
Mahabubnagar	4.00	0.58	14500
Nalgonda	3.00	0.44	14667
Nizamabad	2.00	0.29	14500
Rangareddy	1.00	0.15	15000

Source: Coconut Development Board

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