THE CARIBBEAN IS RUNNING OUT OF COCONUT.

ARE WE running out of coconuts?

At the worst possible time, the Caribbean is running short of one of its most emblematic products.
Rich-world consumers have never been keener on the coconut. Starbucks wants the tropical fruit’s milk for lattes, Rihanna promotes its water as a trendy sports drink, and the price of coconut oil has jumped more than 50 per cent in the past year.


The Caribbean is practically synonymous with the coconut, so its farmers should be cashing in. For a bunch of reasons, they aren’t. Storms, droughts and the Lethal Yellowing disease, spread by plant-hopping insects, have wiped out entire farms; growers have failed to invest in new trees, or fertilisers to improve yields. Caribbean plantations have shrunk by about 17 per cent since 1994, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.


“It’s fair to say that at this pace, the Caribbean is running out of coconut,” said Compton Paul, coordinator of a regional coconut program at the Trinidad-based Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute.


It’s a problem that nobody saw coming. Two decades ago, international demand was waning amid medical warnings that tropical oils could raise levels of artery-clogging cholesterol.


Coconuts sold for next to nothing in the Caribbean, where they’ve grown for five centuries since being introduced by Europeans traveling from the Indian Ocean. Often, they were just left to rot on their trees. NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.