Copra

Decline In Pacific

Results of an Expert Survey

Noumea Nov. 1.

UIGOROUS measures to restore and * expand the coconut industry in r iji, Western Samoa, American Samoa nd the Lower Cook Islands are be ng taken by the authorities there, ccording to Mr. W. V. D. Pieris, opra specialist to the South Pacific Commission. He has just returned ) Commission headquarters here her a two-months tour of the terri >ries named, as part of a Pacific jconut industry survey.

“In the South Pacific, coconut ield from plantations and village oldings is steadily declining”, said [r. Pieris. “At the same time the jpulations of most territories are creasing. As coconuts are their ain source of food and income, the oblem is a serious one”.

The main reason why yield was dining was that most of the icific plantations were well over 60 sars old, and the palms were ap oaching senility. Other contribu ig factors were the presence of ngerous pests in certain areas and neral uncertainty about the future the industry.

“The gravity of the problem is lly understood by administrative d agricultural officers in the four ritories I visited”, said Mr. Pieris. n Fiji and Western Samoa, for ;tance. rehabilitation campaigns ve been started already, and [filar campaigns are to be in gurated shortly in American moa and the Cooks. The improve ;nt of copra quality is also receiv ; attention.”

At the request of administrations 1 interested private organisations, '■ Pieris attended a number of iferences. These were convened discuss the development of the :onut industry, involving not only stepping up of production from sting plantations by improving nagemenl practices, but also ex sion of coconut cultivation where table land was available.

Eylon’S Copra Industry

iome interesting information about don s coconut industry was given PIM in Suva by Mr. Pieris. Mr. ris is a brilliant Cingalese—he k the degrees of MA and BSc in idon, and he was for some time in command of the Coconut earch Institute of Ceylon, where world’s best copra is produced, here are a million acres under onuts in Ceylon, but 60 per cent.

of plantations want re-planting. This is done by establishing well-fertilised young palms between the old palms, and then gradually removing the latter. The old timber must be en tirely taken away, otherwise it harbours the larvae of the Rhino beetle. The beetle has been there since time immemorial; but, owing to some parasite, or fungus, or birds, it is not as serious a pest as in other places.

When the Ceylon expert was in Aitutaki lagoon, he found an ac cumulation of copra that had been awaiting shipment there for four months. He said it was “full of blue mould and crawling with insects”— yet, to his horror, it still was seriously

regarded as a foodstuff. We told him about other accumulations of store-bound copra we had seen in New Guinea and its condition. He said gravely that such things are not tolerated in Ceylon.

Dr. R. W. D. Maxwell of the Fiji Medical Services has been promoted to the post of Deputy Director. He was born in Fiji, graduated in medi cine and surgery at Otago Univers ity, NZ, and joined the Fiji Medical Service in 1934. He has served in hospital centres all over the Colony and since the absence of the Direc tor, Dr, J. M. Cruikshank, on leave, has been Acting Director.