Recently, the Hainan Provincial Forestry Bureau issued the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for the development of the coconut industry in Hainan Province

It plans to expand the coconut planting area during the period and cultivate an area worth more than 1 billion yuan in value.

One of the leading coconut processing enterprises on the island plans to build an international coconut trading center, a coconut culture museum, coconut-themed tourist attractions, leisure farms and an economic demonstration site.

The overall objective is to achieve a total output value of 23 billion yuan from the coconut industry.

Largest coconut producing area in Hainan province

One of the largest and oldest producing areas of coconuts in Hainan is the Dongjiao Coconut Forest in Wenchang. The area has around 500,000 coconuts trees from a variety of species.

It is estimated that farmers in the Dongjiao area can handpick around 100-200 coconuts per day and they can earn around 1-2 Yuan per coconut depending on demand.

2019/2020 Statistics on the coconut industry in Hainan

Hainan is the only major producer of coconuts in China. According to reports, since 2019, Hainan Province has bred 2 improved coconut varieties and cultivated around 1.23 million seedlings from the new varieties.

Since 2019 Hainan has also planted around 68,000 mu (45 km2) of new coconuts trees.

According to statistics, in 2020, the area of coconut groves in Hainan province was around 517,900 mu, of which 398,000 mu are block areas (continuous area of 1 mu and above), and 119,900 mu are scattered in front of and behind houses.

At present, there are 8 improved varieties of coconuts across the province. The total coconut planting area in Hainan is 560,000 mu (373km2), and the annual output is about 230 million coconuts.

However, this is far from meeting the demand. Presently China imports around 2.5 billion coconuts from Southeast Asia every year.

Global Coconut Industry production

According to reports from Business wire, in 2018, countries with the highest volumes of coconut production in 2018 were Indonesia (19M tonnes), the Philippines (14M tonnes), and India (12M tonnes), together accounting for 73% of global production.

Indonesia was the largest exporter of coconuts in the world, with the volume of exports amounting to 290K tonnes, which was near 52% of total exports in 2018.

China’s main coconut producing area

In order to meet their goals, Hainan Province will give full play to the advantages of China’s main coconut producing area, strengthen international cooperation, accelerate the selection and breeding of improved coconut varieties, promote the cultivation of and expand the cultivation bases of improved varieties, promote the transformation of low-yield and low-efficiency forests and explore breeding of high-efficiency three-dimensional varieties.

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