FIGHTING OILSEEDS WITH COCONUT OILS

FIGHTING OILSEEDS WITH COCONUT OILS My dear countrymen, many years ago, when I was still working as a consular assistant at the Philippine Consulate General in New York City, I was assigned to an undercover mission to gather information about a company in New Jersey that was a market leader in canola oil, a type of rapeseed oil that is a direct competitor to our own coconut cooking oil. With a small budget, I was able to produce a decent report that was sent back to the Philippines, but then I had a sense that if I had more resources, I could have done a better job. Bottom line, I felt that even at that time, we were not that serious about economic espionage. Fast forward to today, the internet already provides us with tons of overt information about our product competitors, such that covert operations may not be necessary anymore, at least in most cases. Of course, we could still conduct economic espionage if we want to, but it would be a major waste of resources if we do not even try to make use of the overt information that is already available to us, most of which are openly online. For example, it was reported in the Times of India that a recent study linked seed oils like sunflower, canola, safflower, soybean, peanut, linseed, castor and corn to increased colon cancer among young Americans. According to the Times of India, “colon cancer cases are increasing among young Americans, and one of the risk factors could be use of popular cooking oils in ultra-processed diets, a new US government backed research, published in Gut Journal has found out. Not that we ought to celebrate as we hear about the misfortune of others, but it is also widely known that some companies linked to the seed oil industries have been conducting smear campaigns and black propaganda against our own coconut cooking oils. Now, the playing fields are now even, or it might even be tilted in our favor now. I do not mean to overreact to this good news, but this early, I now call upon our government, especially the Department of Agriculture (DA), the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to immediately draw up a plan for fighting this new battle for market supremacy. I am neither an agriculturist nor an economist, but I have enough common sense to say that our best move now is to increase our production of coconuts, perhaps even double it if we could. As of now, we are the second biggest producer with 14.93 million metric tons, second to Indonesia’s production of 17.19 million metric tons. Coming in third behind us in India with a production of 13. 32 million metric tons. I am sure that by now, Indonesia and India are already planning to increase their own production. What does it take to gain more market shares in the global cooking oil industry? I am sure that the production of raw coconuts is only the first challenge, because there are other challenges like processing, packaging, marketing and shipping. If what it would take are more subsidies to the coconut industries, then so be it. But this opportunity is so huge that I think the President should create a task force to handle it, possibly including all players such as DA, PCA, DTI, DFA and even Landbank. Your friend, IKE SENERES/12-21-24/visit my blog senseneres.blogspot.com