of Copra

A Scientist On The Future of Copra

THE member of the South Pacific Research Council who is concerned with economic development (Dr. H.

G. MacMillan) presented an interesting report to the South Pacific Commission in Suva last month. He dealt at some length with copra, which he said must

continue to be a crop of major importance in the South Pacific. It was essential that production should be improved and increased.

The increase would come by a gradual replacement of old and low-production palms by improved strains. That objective

would not be gained immediately, he said.

But by search, trial in selected locations, and distribution to interested areas of more desirable strains, better crops might be obtained from land now in production.

Dr. MacMillan also advocated better drying of the product, the standardisation of grades, and better marketing. Hand cutting of copra might not soon be changed to mechanical operations, except in isolated places, but mechanical equip ment for drying should be encouraged as a required step in standardisation of grades. He said: “What is the best equipment for a given area will depend on the money available for investment, the quantity ordinarily produced, shipping facilities, and management.”

A device to dispose of poor copra was to mix it with better. But such tricks should be discouraged and controlled by inspection and standardisation of grades, and enforced by authority. He empha sised the importance of marketing as an element in the success of copra produc tion, but said that this would have to be studied separately.

Dr. MacMillan said that the importance of copra cake, or meal, remaining after the oil had been extracted, was one of the reasons for shipping copra to large consuming centres, instead of pressing copra at the production-collection centres, and shipping only the oil.

He said that there had been fear that an increased use of detergents, or synthetic washing compounds, would destroy in part the market for soap making oils. It was his contention that, because of costs alone, coconut oil soaps, with fair allowance for costs of copra, could compete with detergents.

He said he believed that the world prices for fats and oils would decrease gradually. An upsurge of production in annual oil crops, such as soya, peanut, palm kernel, cottonseed, corn and other oil-producing crops, would eventually result in a surplus of oils; but there would remain a sound market for coconut oil, because manufacturers were conser vative operators, with machinery and formulae for producing a known and desirable commodity.

During the war, tallow was substituted for coconut oil in many commodities, to their detriment. Manufacturers are trying to correct this error by returning to coconut oil.

Discussing other South Pacific crops, Dr. MacMillan said that there was a market for cacao of desirable quality, but the potential acreage that might be devoted to it in the area was unknown.

Scientists were at the beginning of that investigation—not the end.

The world picture in rice, was one of a continuing shortage. Rice was a crop for the peasant farmer, and one for suitable terrain. To a large degree, the native peoples of the area lacked the requisite peasant type, and, in most islands, the suitable soils.

Cultivation of rubber must depend on local custom and native ability. Where rubber was not now a crop it might prove a difficult, if not hazardous matter, to introduce it.