Status of Coconut Farmer-Marketers: A Review towards Sustainable Production Options

Abstract

Coconut is one of the Philippine’s most significant crops, with the country ranking second largest producer of coconuts among Southeast Asian countries. However, quality of nuts produced dropped and competitive performance on the global scale was low. This study determined the production capability and challenges encountered by coconut farmer-marketers in the province of Capiz to provide insights towards sustainable production options. This was a descriptive-correlational study, which utilized a validated and reliability tested researcher-made survey questionnaire translated to local dialect. The 382 respondents consisted of the members of the coconut farming associations in the province of Capiz. The data gathered were processed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences, employing tools such as frequency, percentage, mean, t-test, Analysis of Variance and Pearson r. The results revealed that the coconut farmer-marketers were capable in producing coconuts but encountered moderate level of challenges. Differences were found in age, estimated monthly household income, and number of years as coconut farmer-marketers, and high to very high of relationship were found between levelof challenges encountered and production capability.