 Agriculture on the move. Agriculture on the move. Agriculture on the move. Hello again, Sir Lausia, and welcome to the programme, Agriculture on the Move. I am Philippe Sidney, your host. Today we will be speaking about a very important commodity, a very important tree, coconut. Today we will speak about the coconut tree, We will speak about the COVID-19 program as it relates to the minister of agriculture and also Cardi. With me today is Mr Barry Innocent, former director of agri-services or deputy director and is now the country representative for Cardi here in St Lucia. Welcome to the program, Mr Innocent. Thank you, Mr Sidney. My pleasure to be happy to be here, especially concerning such a very important tree crop. Definitely a very important tree crop. On the heels of our cassava and coconut festival, which we had on Sunday gone, which was a huge success. We'll be talking about it a little later. We also know that World Coconut Day is on September 2nd, which is very soon. Why World Coconut Day? Well, I think it was a collaborative effort. The major producers of coconut in the world are Indonesia, Philippines and India, which are from the Asian Pacific community. They formed an organization called Asian Pacific Coconut Community and they came together and realized how important both economically and socially the coconut trees to them and the rest of the world, they decided to initiate World Coconut Day by honoring and celebrating it every second September, every year annually. Now, you must realize that almost 90% of the world's production of coconuts is from the Asia Pacific Coconut Community between Indonesia, India, Philippines and those other countries around that area there. And they realized that, I mean, you could do so many things with coconuts as we were discussing previously. So many things can be done with coconuts. I mean, the coconut tree alone can last, can live to about 80 to 100 years. But it's a good source of food and many materials as we discussed before. You can use the coconut to do so many things from making tents by the beach, using the leaves to cover them, furniture, using the leaves to make hats and at work. Even in the Vietnam War and Second World War, it was whenever, whenever the IV intravenous fluid was not available, the doctors on the ground use coconut water to give the soldiers that are wounded intravenous fluids because of the plasma content and stuff like that. Plus, coconut is high in electrolytes. I mean, you look at it, one coconut water has double the amount of electrolytes than a common sports drink. So I think you do a nice good work out. You know, it's a good thing to drink because it'll give you more energy, help your muscles recover. Because there are many important benefits to it. We can explore and talk about it for a long time. Okay, I know the ministry years ago, there was a coconut program. I know when you were the deputy director, I think you were the point person looking at that initiative. Tell us about this, when you were there, what were the objectives and where we are today? Again, the government of that day saw the importance of coconut production and how it's affecting rural livelihoods. As we speak, the last statistic shows over 150 families, farm families, depend on selling coconut water by the roadside. So it's very important to rural economies in a lot of ways, from the food that can be made of it, the coconut oil and the fresh ground of the water. So at the government, they decided to invest $100,000 in a coconut replanting program or project is where I came in. I was the project coordinator. So in that program, Cardi worked with the industry culture, where Cardi was responsible for receiving over 5,000 seed nuts or dried coconuts from the farming communities. And then Cardi would do early sprouting on it, where they cut the surface, put it on some type of way to cause it to sprout early than it normally do to germinate. Correct. Early than it normally does. So after Cardi had received these 5,000 plus nuts, sprouted them and Cardi then redistributed them in collaboration and partnership with Ministry of Agriculture to the farming community. So we had about 5,000 trees going into the ground. And that was the first phase of the project. Now why is that project was going on? We got wings of, it was reported that the lethal disease was hitting same kids on some of the islands in the north of the Caribbean. So when I heard that, I spoke at the NPS and said, listen, you know, if this disease comes in Lucia, it can put almost every tree. Correct. And this disease takes about six months to do that. Once it reaches on a tree, in about six months the tree can go down. So when I thought about on the Ministry's management at the time, the permanent secretary, the development secretary, the minister at the time, they said, you know what, this is too important, too important to the communities. What are we going to do? So we said, you know what, we use only 20,000 dollars, 100,000 dollars, and we saved 80,000 dollars with the plan to bring in lethal yellow disease resistant varieties into San Lucia. And in that eddy grant, we brought in over 5,000 to 6,000 lethal yellow disease resistant tissue-colored coconut plant into San Lucia. And of course, you need to rest, you know, we have to go through a process of weaning them into our atmosphere and then the next, the redistribution again to the farming community and public as at large. The only thing we had is that when two things, there's a heat with a heat at the time, so it causes a few fatalities in the nuts. But also the necessary documentation in terms of the farmers that came in and the people that came in to get the trees, the records of that was a little bit of an issue. But that has been thrown out because right now on ground, we're trying to find out who these people are and try to work with them. I have seen some of those trees, they seem to be doing well. They're bearing? Bearing fruit, yes, yes. Since our in what year was it? 2018 when we had the, we had the, we had the Ministry of Agriculture had the whole food activity at Chasse there. Right. There's a farmer there right there with there with trees of nuts and it showed it to me. Okay. I know an ex-farmer by Leon S area there that has a tree that has nuts in it also. So I know some of them are bearing. Those who took care of it would have been, those that didn't as I planted, they never looked at it, turned it back on it. It may have challenges because now we don't have to complete with grass and other shrubs around the area. But generally, it is good to know that if liver yellow disease were to come in, which are now, we would have some level of resistance. But that particular variety, what was it mainly for? Was it for processing or for, was it a water nut? It is mainly a water nut and what is different about it is it was high yielding but good quality nut. That was the main thing about it and again with the resistance to the liver yellow disease. And I think it's a good thing to know that our country has secured that plant material, that gym plasma there, which is a good thing. Now moving forward, right now the water nut industry has really shot up. But then we need also to have a balance because the agro process inside of it is key because we have the natural coconut oil, which is done now, and other derivatives coming from the nut. So where are we with the other varieties? There are some tall varieties that are strictly for processing. One of the days where we used to process down in Souffre, and we saw the truckloads coming down into Souffre on the morning, that's gone. So where are we now? Well, from Cardi's perspective, what Cardi is doing right now, Cardi is right now distributing, given three tall coconut trees. Three. And in fact, I have some farmers coming in tomorrow, some of them on Monday, some of them 100, some of them 15-75 and gone planting in their states. For the same reason you mentioned, you have to have balance. There's a great interest into the fresh coconut water because fresh coconut water is revitalizing and it's attractive. But then for coconut oil, you need the tall trees, because the tall trees give you more oil than the short trees. The short trees give you more water. So Cardi is now looking into giving and donating to anybody in the public, the planting material for tall trees. Okay. So when you said tall trees, what was the variety? Pacific talls. Pacific talls. Not Atlantic, Pacific talls, which is the more updated and... That's important. Well, it was already here and you're just propagated. Yeah, it came in, we don't know how it came in, but it came in with this hair. Okay. And then it was propagated. Okay, okay. There's a famous variety called Coco De Spine. How is that? Where does that fit in the whole melee? Well, it fits in because thank God for the, what used to be the National Stakeholder's Platform for Coconuts, which is now the Coconut Cooperative in Zellusia. They have gone into develop a geomplasm bank where they're incorporating all these different varieties into a plant in a particular place location so that they can be continued and the genetics can be continued. And I think Cardi also plans to do some work in the Ministry of Agriculture at the Volet Agriculture Station to put your blossom bank, but we also want to include all these varieties in there, including, we have a new variety, we're here to actually identify scientifically where it came from. These three bears net at such a short height that you literally have to lie down on the ground. That's a small one, it's almost brownish. It's not small, there's a green and there's a brown. But you literally have to lie down on the ground to pick them, that's because they're laying from the ground. Yes, yes, yes. Which brings me to another subject. We are currently, Cardi is currently in discussion with the president and members of the persons with disabilities in Zellusia, but the National Council of Persons with Disabilities in Zellusia. We try to work with them because we want to do a training exercise with them on how to take care of Coconuts, but after that we only give them these dwarf nuts because because somebody might be wheelchair-brown or physically imputed in some way, they may not be able to climb, so a short period they can actually lie down on pick nuts. So we plan to do something with them, hopefully around the 2nd of November this year that is training and also issue these dwarf nuts to them. Now, let us get this clear, but people have this note that... Dwarf and tall. No grafted Coconuts, two days are not grafted. You're very correct. Right? They are dwarf nuts because they bear early, right? They still go tall after all. Eventually, but it's a long time. But it's a long time, in other words they start to bear very short. So there's nothing like grafted not two trees. There's not grafted. There's a lot of back and forth on the symptoms of the true dwarf. Some schools of thought, again India, some people in India talk about the chattel dwarf tree. When you look at the tree, it's very short for true. And look at the ages on it, they still kind of short. So there is evidence to show that there are early birds that get tall, but there's also evidence that there's some level of dwarfism involved. But I think because of the way the coconut tree is cross-pollinated, over the years this lineage has to be cross-bred. Yes. So you have a different everything up and now. Correct, correct. But I remember when I was on the training at Union Archer Station, you notice on both sides of the road, the highways, they were interplanned with mango trees. Right. And they were still there, but they're tall. Yes. They are tall. Yes. The other thing too is the resiliency of the coconut tree. Let me tell you, when there's something called dead cells, right, and it forms cock, you know, that tree can be used in so many ways, all right, in terms of furniture, I know the... You have to stop it there. Don't you say furniture? Beautiful furniture. Beautiful furniture, yes. I mean, you've seen it, the chairs, the tables. I mean, the way it beautifies the furniture is really beautiful. Yes, it's very, very, very, very beautiful. Yeah, and I know, I remember years ago, when people were building houses, they were used as at the bottom of the houses, right, as poles, you know, and that was for years. Even at the fishing buoys, when they would use this to build what they call it, the jetty. Yes, yes. And the moment there is water there, it stays longer. It actually kills it even better. But the behavior that you speak to that... Oh, yes. Because do you know how it can... That thing goes down, they're breaking up. The head of the coconut tree will recharge the ground. That's going to go back up. Come back up, not breaking up. Yes, yes, it's very, very, very flexible, you know, in that regards. Yes, yes. All right. And that's how resilient that coconut tree is. Yes, very resilient. We do fabric. You're watching Agriculture in the Move. Stay tuned. We'll be back soon. For effective chemical treatment of Black Cigar Toca, practice routine preventative maintenance of all tools and equipment, especially the mist blower, to ensure proper functioning. Clean sprayer after use and service the machine regularly, as recommended by the manufacturer. Whenever you are using pesticides to control Black Cigar Toca disease, personal protection and safety measures must be followed. Spray operators must always wear proper protective gear. Be for or when handling pesticides, put on your overalls, respirator, goggles, boots, and gloves to avoid contact with the skin, inhalation, and ingestion of pesticides. For more information on how to treat and control Black Cigar Toca on your farm or in your backyard garden, contact the Black Cigar Toca Management Unit at 451-5491, 451-5894, or email bpmu at canvw.lc. This message is brought to you by the Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with the International Cooperation and Development Fund of the Republic of China on Taiwan. To the program Agriculture in the Move, today we're talking coconuts. And of course with me is Mr. Barry Nocent, who is the country representative for Cardi Hands and Lucha. Welcome to the, tell us, are there anything happening on the day itself, any activities? Well, yes. On the day itself, Cardi, the Caribbean Agriculture Research and Development Institute, which is popularly called Cardi, will be launching a regional competition which will involve competitions for innovations in products or technologies that are in the coconut tree. So we're looking at getting as many persons as possible, as many persons as possible involved, from schools to others. And some of the prizes involve tickets to go to the Cayman Islands and the Cayman Islands, where we're going to have the Caribbean make up agriculture. Okay. It will organize to get you to there. That's the winner of the, the winners of the competition. Competition. It just means to encourage again, persons to look at all the different industries and what different things are going to be done with coconuts and to encourage inventiveness and creativity and innovation. I'm hoping that we'll get some very beautiful products and technologies that come out of this that possibly can lend itself to economic development in some way or the other. Okay. Barry, there of course, in production of any crop, there's also pests. Yes. So I know there are a few of them. I remember the coconut mites some years ago. I mean, it's still there, but it's not as far as an economic threat is concerned. Okay. But there are other pests that affect the coconut. Can you tell us some of those pests? Yes. So you have the mites, which may not be, as you said, great, great, great significant, but it does affect the quality of the fruit. Because it means you cannot now export that fruit because one doesn't see that that might affect. That's counted, yes. Yes. It's also defacing to the fruit. That's right. But you also have the South American palm weaver, which has been now taking some level of significance. Cardi in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and the plant health teams. We went around the island looking. We trained farmers, extension officers, other stakeholders in the sector on how to identify it or to control it. And then we also showed them how to make a simple trap out of something that is normally thrown away. Simple water bottle you drink from is a large one, there's the small one. But in a simple trap, you take the two bottles, you put it together, upside down, you create a little window-like effect and you put some pheromone or even some sugarcane at the bottom there. It attracts the South American people who can use the smell of it. It goes down. So it goes down in the kind of V-shaped pathway. All right. Once it goes through the entrance to the bottom which puts it at the bottom of this bottom. It can come back up. It's having challenges going back up. Okay. That's about three weeks ago, I went to the farmer's farm and he had about seven South American palm weavers in his trap. But they went down and couldn't come back up. So we showed the farmers how to make this. Simple thing. They put a little piece of metal that you hang it on your tree like that. And plenty of South American palm weavers have been caught and we are now documenting it. The Miniaturite culture team has been very instrumental in actually going around the island, setting up traps and taking population count of how many were seen and where it was seen. So far I looked at a lot of fun in Souffre, in Delser, in Choselle, and some in the north also. But this South American palm weavers is critical because what it can do is actually can kill the tree. Okay. And it's affiliated also with the Red Wing. The Red Wing disease? Yes. So it actually feeds on the heart of the tree. Okay. Right? And the heart of the tree is very important to the tree because when that dies out, the tree eventually starts to collapse. Little by little it starts to collapse. It takes a while to do that, it collapses. So I think it's very important with the Miniaturite culture, it's also very important to do some level of redress and some level of resolve. So we've come together and we've been working and giving these traps away, showing the farmers how to make these traps and apply it. And it's been doing very well. Are there any other threats? Well, before I talk about threats, I want to talk about also, apart from these traps, there are some organic or natural treatments that can be used, but these things for the mites. Oh, okay, okay. Because the Ministry of Agriculture and in collaboration with Cardi realized that mites are becoming very prevalent, we decided to look into a control. But because of our health conscious, the world is these days, we were looking at some organic and natural treatments. Integrated pest control. Yes. So we're looking at like golden seed and aromide, which is a natural pesticide. There's no artificial chemical in it, it's not toxic. I mean, if you drink it, you wouldn't do anything. It's, you know, and we are now about to start an experiment in a petonic color on some trees to see how well this organic and natural pesticide will work against the mites. Okay, okay. For the two of that, again you have the little yellow disease which is not in St. Lucia at the moment, but it's a threat. So I think the good thing about leafy yellow disease is the same practices that have been done for the TRF right now in terms of the food buffs and all the different things that applies to it naturally. Okay. Because the leafy yellow disease is caused, is carried or the vector for it, or the host for it, is a small grasshopper they call it a leafhopper. Very tiny thing about the size of my needle. Yes, yes, yes. About about quarter inch. And once this thing hops on, this thing can simply hop on somebody's shirt, and you know most of the airports in our Caribbean. It's transported. Yes, most of the airports in our Caribbean are close to co-cognitories. Then jump on somebody's shirt, somebody's bag, somebody's suitcase, and kind of move across from one country to the next. Worst than that is the fact that the leafhopper likes to hang around grass. So we try to discourage persons from moving nice lawns from one country to the next. Because the leafhopper is often found in the lawn. And we don't want it to be able to move that kind of material into the island. And then the chance exists that the leafhopper, which is the host to the leafy yellow mycoplasma would then be released. Once it comes in the country, that's it. It multiplies itself so fast and moves so fast. So a good thing is the miniature agriculture plant health team has been doing the sensitization already long before in the days of Hillary. And so there's a level of awareness that happened some years ago. Myself also on one of your programs and things. Yes, it's understandable. You have me spoke about it. So you have that. And the other thing is you have rats, which can sometimes go in the tree and make the tree very dangerous. If a rat chews onto the part of the, that touches the fruit to the bunch and choosing and that falls, that can cause death. Yes. In fact, the statistics show that every year over one hundred and fifty people die from fallen coconuts. So rodents in the trees is a critical thing. And I've happened to rodents you have also natural trees drying, nettle fruits drying up. Right, and they fall in the earth. Yes. But rodents is also an issue with the coconut plants. And of course you have to make sure you properly take care of it. I've noticed some farmers in growing the coconut plants, but they do it less than 40 feet, which is not appropriate. They probably know it's not. It's at least 40 feet apart. And if you're going to intercrop it, at least 25 feet apart. So if you plant it too close, you may have problems with your productivity and your yield. So all different factors, even whether you fertilize or not, some farmers don't fertilize at all. But I mean, there's some bananas as well. In fact, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, and there's some bananas. Once you take care of the banana, you fertilize. Obviously they get to fertilize at the same time. Right now, that's why you have the yields are very low now. Exactly, exactly. But how in what way are we going to encourage farmers to really look at pure standard coconut plantations? Yes, yes. But the good thing is the coconut cooperative in San Lucia, they're doing a lot of work. A lot of sensitization. Car is doing a lot of sensitization. Even the Ministry of Agriculture is doing a lot of sensitization, informing people how important the coconut tree is and the importance of proper cultivation. Because, I mean, a healthy coconut tree can give you about 100 coconuts per year. If it's well taken care of. And a coconut tree can last between 80 to 100 years. So that's a good, sustainable source of food and other materials. Correct. Many other things. Okay. In fact, what we had on Sunday, which was a combination of the cassava and coconut festival, and you can understand why that marriage, because growing up, you eat bone, you eat cassava and it has coconuts. Yes. But I mean, I was so pleased to see the number of derivatives on Sunday that the agro-processors did. And we had a successful activity. And this is what we want to bring back. I was telling some people that I grew up where I remember the days when they were soft drink bottles. And it was in demand. And for people to get the bottles to sell, they used to make tablets. And they used to say, Tablet Pobutai, you know, there was a battering taking place. So I said, leave school and run home, trying to look for bottles to get the Gagesh. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And in the rural areas, that's what people used to do. People used to make Gagesh and tablets and to sell to buy school books for the children. Coconut cake. And cake and these other things like, you know, turnovers and ponds and all of these things. So, I mean, the coconut played a critical role in the economic benefits of the people in the rural areas. Very, very important, very important. So what I want to know now, I don't know whether that, to me, that has to happen, to know the acreage. Do you know the acreage of coconut and ocean, as we speak? Well, that has not been properly documented. We have proven aground. I know the coconut cooperative within Sharia culture is doing some work on the ground. They started three years ago. They got some material, but it's not complete. So I think there's a going back and redoing again to top of the information. It's ongoing. I think that is something that we need to know. Yes. Because, okay, you have tall coconut plants are going out to the farmers. Are you keeping, I'm hoping that you keep a record of where it's going to, definitely. At least it tells you how many acreages are that are established on the ground. I mean, we need a moving forward. That, too, will tell because somebody called me and was saying, but we have no coconut on ground and we have coconut. So I'm saying, no, it's the reverse, right? We do not have enough cassava on ground, but I think we still have a lot of coconuts on ground now to have share. And the festival is a good thing because it opens people's minds to different products and different industries that can be done. For example, you know even the coconut jelly, that's a very potent industry. And position concern about the sanitary conditions when they sit by the roadside, they're worried about other bits and people, you know. But there are technologies out there that is like HPP. Yeah. High pressurized pasteurization. Yes. Which can make it, you can apply that. You don't lose the nutritive value as will be done with heat. But at the same time, it is sanitized or it is removed from pathogens. Yeah. And even the thing, too, the coconut husk, I mean, okay, all that goes into the dump. Yes. But we can take this thing and threat this thing so many things. And have compost. And sell to the media. Medium. And commit mats. It's a number of things. But even the BMW is at one time, coconut husk has been used in the car seat too. Okay. In the beginning. Okay. Coconut husk. Okay. Okay. For the moving to an artificial case. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're going to have to use our pillows. Our pillows alone are mattresses. And that's when the bed bugs in our pillows too. Yes, yes. You know, so it was very, very, very, you know. So, I was really about to close the program, Mr. You know what I'm saying? Tell us any final words from you. Well, I want to say that there are a lot of products that can be entrepreneurial. Activity can be done with a lot of products with coconuts. And I want to encourage the youth to look into it. Based off the coconut jelly that's not really tapped in too well yet, because you wouldn't see coconut jelly at mass yet, what's at the supermarket. But somebody can look into that, a young man, a young woman, a young group of people. There are so many that can be done with coconuts. As you mentioned, there's mats. There's flower pots or plant pots made of the fiber. There's a lot of avenue for entrepreneurial activity. I want to encourage the youth to look into it, the unemployed to look into it, and try to find some kind of self-employment for yourself. Very good, very good. I also want to say thank you to those persons, the participants at our coconut and Ankarthal Festival on Sunday. I think that was fantastically done. The patrons who really supported the activity, thank you very much. I must say thank you to Honorable Jerry Mayanobat, the district rep for supporting this program. Thank you very much, very, very, very much. I look forward to our Cocoa Festival on World Food Day in Sofre. Thank you again for viewing. I'm Philip Zinnie, saying goodbye and I'll see you again. Thank you, my brother. I miss one thing she'll catch on with Kali John.