Technology Mission on Coconut
Why
the Mission?
Traditionally, coconut was grown for edible oil. It served as an ingredient for various industrial applications too. The changed food habits and availability of other cheaper edible oils both in the edible and industrial sectors, however, have brought out a drastic decline in the use of coconut oil in these areas. During the last few years, on account of heavy imports of cheaper vegetable oil, especially of the Palmolein, the price of coconut oil has been depressed despite the large-scale price support operations undertaken. The Price Support Scheme could not make much impact in pushing up the price level and was not beneficial to the farmers as expected. In this context, it was realized that diversification of coconut derived products and value addition could only help the coconut growers in getting remunerative prices. The coconut crop has also been affected by severe pests and debilitating diseases like root-wilt, ganoderma wilt, Thanjavur wilt and Tatipaka disease. It was realized that a major initiative should be started towards controlling the pests and diseases in coconut to improve its productivity and promote product diversification on better value realization from various coconut products. This will help the small and marginal farmers who depend on coconut for their livelihood to realize better returns.
In this context to protect the interest of the coconut growers, the Prime Minister announced launching of Technology Mission on Coconut. The Mission should converge and synergize all the efforts through vertical and horizontal integration of existing programmes and address the problems and bridge the gaps through appropriate programmes in Mission Mode to ensure adequate, appropriate, timely and concurrent action. This would help develop a mechanism which makes coconut farming competitive and ensures reasonable returns.
Goals
and Objectives
The goals and objectives of the Mission are to:
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to establish convergence and synergy among numerous ongoing governmental programmes in the field of coconut development in order to bring in horizontal and vertical integration of these programmes |
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to ensure adequate, appropriate, timely and concurrent attention to all the links in the production, post harvest and consumption chain |
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to maximise economic, ecological and social benefits from the existing investment and infrastructure created for coconut development |
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to promote economically desirable diversification and value addition to generate skilled employment. |
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to disseminate technologies using participatory approach through demonstration and promotion to address the gaps in a mission mode |
Mission
Approach
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mission approach is to evolve an approach for technology support which shall have synergy and convergence to address the existing gaps. |
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existing schemes of Coconut Development Board and other institutes will continue with existing pattern and shall be converged in a manner that vertical and horizontal integration are achieved. |
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issues which have not been addressed in existing schemes to meet the challenges. |
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issues relating to development of technologies for management of insect pests and disease affected gardens, product diversification and market promotion, its demonstration and promotion for adoption. |
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missing links in existing programmes with focused attention to achieve the goals of the mission |
Constitution of a National Steering Committee (NSC)
1. Special Secretary, DAC Krishi Bhavan, New Delhi - Chairman
2. Chairman, Coconut Development Board, Kochi - Member and Mission Director
3. Joint Secretary, Ministry of Food Processing Industries. - Member
4. Deputy Director General (Hort.), ICAR, - Member Krishi Bhavan, New Delhi
5. Managing Director, NHB, Gurgaon - Member
6. AMA, Dept. of Agriculture & Cooperation. - Member
7. Horticulture Commissioner, Dept. of Agriculture - Secretary & Cooperation
Constitution of a Project Approval Committee (PAC)
i) Chairman, Coconut Development Board - Chairman
ii) Secretary Horticulture, Government of Karnataka - Member
iii) Secretary Agriculture, Government of Kerala - Member
iv) Asst. Director General (Plantation Crops), ICAR - Member
v) Representative of Horticulture Commissioner, Dept. of Agriculture and Cooperation, Govt. of India - Member
vi) Representative of Ministry of Food Processing Industries - Member
vii) Joint Advisor, Directorate of Marketing and Inspection - Member
viii) Director, CFTRI, Mysore - Member
ix) Chief General Manager, Technical Service Dept., NABARD, Mumbai - Member
x) Chief General Manager, Indian Overseas Bank Bangalore - Member
xi) Chief Coconut Development Officer, Coconut Development Board, Kochi - Member
Focus
Areas
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Research and Development. |
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Capacity building and participatory planning and implementation. |
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Infrastructure Development. |
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Integrated insect pest and disease management. |
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Quality, Quantity and Productivity Improvement. |
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Facilitating Credit Availability and Management. |
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Socially Acceptable and Ecologically Sustainable Schemes leading to large scale adoption and long- lasting effects. |
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Poverty Alleviation Linked with Sustained Natural Resource Management through judicious management of existing land use. |
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Post-harvest Processing, Product diversification and Value addition. |
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Agri-Business in coconut. |
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Equitable Access of People to benefits and equitable sharing by actually involving people at all levels during the project implementation, thus ensuring the evolution of a proper usufruct sharing mechanism for them. |
Mission
Components & Programmes
The Technology Mission covers four major components / programmes :
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Development and adoption of technologies for management of insect pests and disease affected coconut gardens |
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Development and adoption of technologies for processing and product diversification. |
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Market research and promotion |
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Technical support, external evaluation and Emergent requirement. |
Eligible
Institutions / Organizations / Individuals |
Eligible
Institutions / Organizations / Individuals |
For more details, please contact us:
E-mail: kochi.cdb@gov.in
