the pinch
pp. 27-103 · Read in the full issue
Planters feel the pinch
By a staff writer
The copra market remains sluggish and the Pacific Islands planters are feeling the pinch. Temporary unem ployment in several groups is in evitable unless there is a quick up turn in the world demand. Reports from London and the Continent sug gest a quick rise is remote for some time ahead.
International monetary troubles have taken the place of the pro longed strike by US west coast longshoremen, who effectively cut Pacific copra growers and processors out of a big market for more than three months. Copra and coconut oil, diverted to the UK and Europe did not take long to cause an over supply there.
London prices in October and November showed a decided ten dency to ease. At the end of October the price was £67.84 ($147.37), the lowest average price for the year.
November saw a further recession with the price in the week ended November 12 down to $138.60 a long ton.
In the New Hebrides on November 8, the copra price fell to its lowest ever—sAso a ton, $6 below its previous price—and the Department of Agriculture was looking at the effect this low price was likely to have on local copra production. The 1971 production was expected to be about 35,000 tons, an improvement on last year’s.
New Hebrides’ growers found their lot improved slightly halfway through November, when both Bums Philp and CFNH lifted the beach price by $3 a ton to $53. This followed a slight, but temporary rise in the European market. It was the first rise in the NH beach price since February, when it was $B5 a ton.
The BSIP Copra Board maintained lower prices of $lOO (first grade), $96 (second grade) and $B6 (third grade) in the face of lower London prices. Copra shipped in the Holly bank in November, was sold in London for only £64.50 ($138.20).
In February and March the BSIP board had been paying growers $l4O for Ist grade.
The BSIP Financial Secretary, Mr.
John Smith, introducing the 1972 budget, spoke about a “welcome increase” in copra production. He
Continued on p. 101
expected total production for 1971 to top 25,000 tons (1970 production was 24,216 tons).
Mr. Smith said the board had, buttressed the primary producer from the full realities of the world market by subsidies drawn from accu mulated reserves. The prices in the BSIP had consistently been higher than those paid in the region. Mr.
Smith also announced the removal of the $7 a ton export on copra, as a measure to help the industry.
He said the 10 per cent ad valorem duty would remain, and to ensure stability there would be no further changes in duty before 1975. Mean while money would be spent on im proving the industry (new plantings, fertiliser, training, etc.) equal to the amount of the duty collected.
Copra Board prices would be ex tended to points outside of Honiara and Gizo (taking into account freight differentials and commissions), and credit would be made available to planters.
Mr. Smith said with this new government help the planters had the opportunity to redouble their efforts
to increase production, which would
help the protectorate’s economy.
Plantations should re-invest their profits within the territory.
In New Guinea, prices fell so low that the Minister for External Ter ritories, Mr. C. E. Bames, approved in principle an increased rate of bounty from the Copra Fund. The bounty was expected to be SlO a ton, from December 1, to give grow ers an expected final return of an average of $125 a ton. The board will meet again in February to con sider copra prices for December- February.
Fiji expects some unemployment because of the depressed state of the world copra market. A number of planters have decided not to cut copra till prices improve.
Island Industries closed its coconut oil mill in Suva for three weeks in November because of a shortage of copra.
The chairman of W. R. Carpenter Holdings, Mr. C. H. V. Carpenter, said at the company’s annual general meeting in Sydney in November that Fiji should benefit in 1971/72 from higher revenue in the sugar and tourist industries, and through capital investment, all of which should alleviate the effect on Fiji’s economy by the fall in world copra prices.
There was a despairing cry of, “The copra industry is dead in its present form” from one of Fiji’s leading planters, Mr. J. V. Tarte, of Taveuni on November 25.
“We are only living on hope at the moment, and the situation is desperate,” he said, and then sug gested a remedy—a switch from copra production to the manufacture of coconut by-products such as coco nut cream and milk.
He said, “Two or three factories on Taveuni could handle everyone’s production and there would be no fluctuation of price”. He added, “Plantations are going back to bush and are not being cared for because people have no money to put into that sort of thing”.
In the US Trust Territory, Mar shall Islands co-operatives officer Eric Pyne (who is also well-known in PNG) said in November that copra “could still be the TT’s top export earner”, despite the declining world prices and the movement of islanders away from plantations to the district centres. But incentives were needed if the potential was to be tapped and nowhere was it being tapped at the moment. Tourism, with an estimated 1971 income of SUS 2.4 million, is No. 1 income earner for Micronesia. Copra is No. 2, with exports of about 51.6 million.