DA-PCA Braces for Coconut Trust Fund Law Implementation

After decades-long of waiting, with the signing of the landmark Republic Act No. 11524, otherwise known as the Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Trust Fund Act, the Department of Agriculture-Philippine Coconut Authority (DA-PCA) braces itself to face new and enormous challenges of effectively implementing the law that aims to consolidate the benefits due to coconut farmers and sustain the development of the coconut industry.  
DA-PCA Administrator Benjamin Madrigal, Jr. said that as the lead government agency tasked to implement the coconut trust fund law, the Authority is poised to ensure that “the policy of the State to consolidate the benefits due to coconut farmers, especially the poor and the marginalized, under the various statutes and to expedite the delivery thereof to attain increased incomes for coconut farmers, alleviate poverty and achieve social equality,” as stated in Section 2 of the Act, shall be implemented to the letter.
Under the new law, a Trust Fund will be created which will be capitalized, managed, invested, utilized, and accounted in accordance with the Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Plan (CFIDP), to be crafted by the DA-PCA.  This plan will essentially set the overall strategy for the development and rehabilitation of the coconut industry in the next 50 years, and therefore must be a product of tight collaborative effort between the government agencies involved in implementing the law and the coconut farmers and industry stakeholders, as well as other civil society organizations and the academe.  
Along this line, DA-PCA has partnered with technical experts from the University of the Philippines-Los Baños, to come up with the draft Coconut Farmers and Industry Roadmap that will set the strategic direction for the progressive development of coconut farmers and the industry, in support of the crafting of the CFIDP.  This will be presented in the various regional and provincial fora. With inputs and support of all stakeholders, the crafted CFIDP shall ensure that current and next generations of coconut farmers are capacitated into empowered “cocopreneurs” and will drive the coconut industry into its full potential.