Local Coconut Agribusinesses to be Featured at Agrilink 2019

The Department of Agriculture’s Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Division of Region 8 (DA-AMAD) will be promoting local coconut agribusinesses under its investment, promotion and market development programs at the country’s largest and premiere trade exhibit in agriculture, food and aquaculture.  

“Our core programs are aligned with the DA’s advocacy towards sustainable agricultural growth by providing our farmers and fisherfolk easier access to market linkages and capital that they can use to strengthen their resilience to climate and disaster risks,” said Evelyn Mionda, chief of DA-AMAD.  For the coconut sector in the Eastern Visayas, DA-AMAD is implementing its marketing programs in collaboration with the regional office of the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA).   

DA-AMAD and PCA see diversification as a sustainable way to add more value to the coconut farmers’ products and lessen their dependence on selling their crops as copra, whose prices in the market are volatile.  Among the coconut agribusinesses that PCA and DA-AMAD have helped promote is E.F. Winery, owned and operated by Mr. Edmundo Fabi, a native of San Fernando, Palo, Leyte.  Fabi’s agribusiness involves processing, coconut sap into tuba, or coconut wine, and other coconut-based spirits.  Today, he produces at least 1,000 gallons of tuba a month, which are then sold in the local markets.