Going nuts over coconuts

The tri-pod of tea, rubber and coconut on which Sri Lanka’s economy stood in the palmy days is now propped up on other props too such as housemaids and garments. While the new props do make substantial contributions to the economy, the old plantation products are still of vital importance and cannot be written away.

Tea is still able to withstand global competition although its potential is much diminished while natural rubber in recent times has plunged to very low levels. The coconut industry is now in a crisis and tragically, this is because the government appears to be kicking into its own goal.

Yesterday, it was reported that the price of coconuts in the North Western Province in which the Coconut Belt is located had dropped drastically by over 50 per cent from Rs. 7000 per one thousand nuts to Rs. 3000.

In recent years, the lament of coconut growers as well as producers of coconut oil has been that the importation of other vegetable oils such as palm oil with little or no import duties being enforced is destroying Sri Lanka’s coconut industry. Coconut oil producers also allege unfair practices by importers who import low quality palm oil – at times those of industrial grades-which are mixed with, better grades of palm oil and sold as cooking oil.

Unable to compete with imported vegetable oil, the coconut oil industry is folding up. Some of the big institutions that manufactured coconut oil for export are now reported to be storing imported oil in their large tanks while many other coconut oil mills are reported to have closed down.

This is indeed a national calamity because the entire coconut industry is being threatened. While some products such as desiccated coconuts are benefiting from the drop in the prices of coconut, in the long run if coconut estates prove to be not economically viable, it would virtually amount to Killing the Goose that lays the Golden Eggs.

The failure of coconut plantations to be economically viable could lead to many national disasters. Coconut plantations, which are distributed throughout the country, provide the base products for many agro-industries. It could lead to mass unemployment and even more grave environmental problems. With real estate dealers poised to plunder coconut lands, particularly in the coconut belt, plantation owners will find it more profitable to parcel out and sell their land for building houses than keep the plantations going. Denudation of vast acreage of coconut plantations would be an environmental disaster of huge magnitude.

One of the reasons given for free importation of vegetable oils is that coconut oil has been found to contain cholesterol, which causes heart diseases. This vicious myth propagated by the other vegetable oil industries was even accepted by our medical authorities and it is only now that our own scientists and doctors are debunking the myth. It was reported in ‘The Island’ yesterday that the former Chief Cardiologist of the General Hospital’s Cardiology Unit, Dr. D. P Athukorale has said that mass publicity on coconut oil and coconut milk increasing the cholesterol content was not true. According to research conducted in the 1950’s the number of coconuts used by one person was 220 but in 1980 this figure had dropped to 90 while those who suffered heart attacks increased. However, excessive use of coconut oil could increase the cholesterol level just as other kinds of oil such as sunflower oil and Soya oil would. An average quantity of about 30g per day cannot increase the cholesterol content of our body, he had said

The paradox about the bias towards coconut oil is that although on wrong assumptions other vegetables oils are permitted to be imported, consumption of other substances that increase the cholesterol content appear to be greatly encouraged by government policies. Dr. Athukorale has pointed out that non-vegetarian products do increase the cholesterol content and non-vegetarians were more prone to heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis and food poisoning.

But the recent trend in eating habits seems to be to increase meat consumption as witnessed by the opening of outlets of multi-national junk food manufacturers. These outlets would send meat consumption soaring upwards, even though the method deployed at killing the animals for sale in these places (as proclaimed by the notices of managements) has been widely criticised by animal rights organisations and some religious leaders.

This is one more example of Sri Lanka kicking into its own goal.

On the one hand we frown at our own vegetable oil for the wrong reasons and encourage consumption of imported vegetables oils which are equally bad, if not worse. And then we encourage meat eating which generates more cholesterol than cooking food in coconut oil.

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