The Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) will come up with a new roadmap that may need P7 billion for the replanting of new trees on 350,000 hectares in an aim to achieve a long-time goal to double the country’s copra production to four million MT.

For the replanting alone, investment may reach to P7 billion as cost is placed at a minimum of P20,000 per hectare. This cost may rise to P35,000 to P50,000 depending on the replanting location.

“We need a new roadmap because our last plan was made during the time of Secretary (Luis) Lorenzo yet (in early 2000s, almost 10 years ago),” said PCA Deputy Administrator Carlos Carpio in an interview.

Out of the 3.3 million hectares of coconut area, two-thirds or 2.2 million hectares are already considered senile. But the government does not need to work on two million hectares of replanting and fertilization. One million up to 1.5 million hectares may be enough to achieve the goal of doubling production from the present level placed at 2.2 million MT.

Some 470,000 hectares of nutrient-deficient land will be fertilized on top of the replanting on 350,000 hectares. The government can do the replanting on 100,000 hectares per year so that the short-term plan can be finished in 3.5 years.

The critical path to this plan is the production of one million seedlings of the synthetic or Orgullo Tall variety each year through the PCA’s nursery in Zamboanga. The synthetic variety’s high yield of 3.2 to 6.7 MT per hectare based on field trials will immediately raise production after a gestation period of four to five years prior to flowering and fruiting.

Carpio said replanting should only be made in already identified suitable areas for coconut rather than in new areas that have not been planted to coconut such as those identified by the Toyo Group of Japan that sought to plant coconut in the Ilocos Region.

“The really good areas are in Mindanao, in Davao , where there is no typhoon,” he said.

PCA is planning to plant synthetic varieties which can have seeds that can be replanted up to the fourth generation, unlike hybrids which need to have new seedling for each planting.