OREANDA-NEWS. For more than three years, Deutsche Gesellschaft fьr Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, BASF and Cargill have worked together to promote sustainable coconut oil and improve the living conditions of coconut farmers in the Philippines. They have established the world's first certified production of copra, the dried coconut flesh needed to process coconut oil.

The project on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao is partly financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) under the develoPPP.de programme.

Since the project started in September 2011, over 1,000 farmers have been trained in good agricultural practices, such as the right use of fertilizers, intercropping and replanting. This education enables them to increase their yields in the long term. Furthermore, this group received access to a newly-developed drying technology for high-quality coconut flesh and training on the standards of the Sustainable Agricultural Network (SAN).

As a result, 300 small farmers from the region now produce the world's first Rainforest Alliance certified copra meeting the standards of the SAN. The recognized certification system helps them to improve social and environmental standards and increases their revenues as BASF and Cargill pay a premium for high quality and certified copra. Furthermore, these farmers were supported in forming legal producer entities. Their members can now access micro-credit facilities instead of having to rely on pre-financing by middlemen. It allows them to improve their profit margin by selling directly to the mill. Farmers who are participating in all of these joint activities are able to increase their income by at least 15 percent.

Around 2,500 small farmers and their families - up to 12,500 Filipinos - received access to health care through the project: they were able to register at the PhilHealth, government health insurance. Thanks to information sharing seminars and a subsidized enrollment fee, they now receive free medical treatment.

Even beyond the project in Mindanao, Philippines there is high commitment by all partners to further promote the production of sustainable certified coconut oil. The results that have been achieved until today lay the foundation for potential future cooperation in this field with extended scope and regional scale.

With production of over 15 billion coconuts per year, the Philippines is one of the leading global producers. Coconut palms are grown on an area covering 3.5 million hectares, about 26 percent of the country's land use. The export earnings for coconut products were approximately 1.8 billion US dollars. Yet, coconut producing regions are among the least developed areas in the country and home to some of the largest numbers of Philippine's rural poor. Worldwide, coconut oil is mainly used as an ingredient in food, while coconut oil derivatives are also used in the home and personal care industries.