Guyana’s first ever coconut festival, billed for October, is poised to do more than any previous initiative to raise awareness of the importance of the product, Chairman of the National Stakeholders Forum for Coconut Development Raymond Trotz has said.
He also firmly believes that it will kick start a more deliberate national initiative to position coconuts as a more significant money-earner for the country’s agricultural sector.
As the producer of coconut water for the local market under the popular Phoenix brand, Trotz is no dreamer as far as the potential of the industry is concerned. He unhesitatingly acknowledges the existence of a potential multi-million-dollar market for locally produced coconut water in North America and Europe but says that in its present state the local coconut industry cannot hope to meet the needs of that market.
It would take, Trotz says, around 30,000 nuts to fill a 20-ft container with bottled coconut water. Filling a 40-ft container would take up to 60,000 nuts, perhaps more.
These are the volumes of product that will be required to meet the demands that are being made on the Guyana market. Trotz is under no delusions that the local industry is simply not positioned to meet those demands.
For the moment, however, he lauds the efforts of the Essequibo farmers who not only keep the industry alive but sustain the national ambition of continually increasing what, at this time, is Guyana’s decidedly modest share of the global coconut water market.
