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Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte is prodding the national government to allocate enough funds for intervention programs that would help boost the livelihood of local coconut farmers. 

One such program, which would need a lot of resources, is an intensive replanting initiative to replace standing coconut trees. 

This, as the Bicol solon noted that millions of standing trees were already old or senile, and below the prime of their productivity and producing fewer and fewer nuts over the years. 

“An overwhelming majority of our 2.5 million coconut farmers are already living below the poverty threshold, and many more will join them there in the years ahead without any hope of salvation unless we in the Congress ensure ample funds for intervention programs," Villafuerte said. 

With declining per-hectare yields and shrinking incomes because of softening global prices and stiff competition from cheaper rivals like palm oil, Villafuerte reckoned, “These farmers cannot rely on coconut production alone to make both ends meet." 

"[They] will have to be assisted by the government with more and better programs that will let them use the wide spaces between their coconut trees for planting other crops and raising animals for generating supplemental income," stressed the National Unity Party (NUP) president. 

He also said that there should be an aggressive government effort to help coconut farmers process and improve their products, “so our farmers can cash-in on the ever-growing global trend on a healthy or ‘green’ lifestyle by way of an aggressive promotion and marketing strategy, with focus  on the medicinal, nutritional and therapeutic value of our processed coconut products". 

This can be achieved through additional and better intervention programs designed to facilitate the processing of coconuts into value-added products like virgin coconut oil (VCO), upgrading the quality of such healthier products to world-class standards, and promoting and selling them in overseas markets. 

Villafuerte said that in CamSur, for instance, investors are most welcome to partner with local entrepreneurs in the processing and export of high-value coconut products. 

The former governor recalled that last March, President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. visited Camarines Sur's P230-million Sustainable Agriculture and Fishery Enterprises (SAFE) Innovation Hub, which processes and markets value-added coconut products for export. 

In the Congress, Villafuerte has pushed several initiatives to energize the salt, bamboo, and abaca or Manila hemp industries. 

He is one of the lead authors of Republic Act (RA) 11953, or the New Agrarian Emancipation Act, which condoned the P57.56 billion combined debt of some 610,000 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs).