THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : Dehusking a coconut is one of the hardest parts of making any coconut-based products. But imagine thousands of coconuts being dehusked, not through manual labour, but by automatons, for easier production of coconut oil.
In what could be a potential groundbreaking shift in coconut-products industry, the Koliyakode Consumer Cooperative Society is setting up an automated coconut dehusking plant near Pothencode here.
Aimed as a move to scale up the production of their company’s coconut oil ‘Golden Hill’, the automated system will dehusk coconuts and dry coconut kernels-- an innovative way of cutting down labour cost. The product will be marketed by the KCCS Farmers Producers Limited, a private company set up in 2020 by the cooperative society.
Speaking about the landmark move, KCCS Farmers Producers Limited managing director Krishna Lal said that the new changes will help reinvent themselves and stay ahead of the curve in a market where competition is tight.
“We primarily conceived KCCS as a way to support farmers by securing a fair income for their produce. We hope our new move will help us work more efficiently towards that,” he said. Citing that nearly half of the women working in the society are women, Krishna Lal added that KCCS is keen on empowering women from rural backgrounds to help them earn a livelihood.
A society which had diversified its spheres of operation from consumer stores, fertiliser manufacturing units, and health care units, the KCCS also has a dairy plant which produces 5,000 litres of milk every day.
However, despite multiple attempts, the Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium, the apex body for providing assistance to Farmers Producers Organisation (FPO), has yet to acknowledge them as FPOs.
“We couldn’t avail of benefits eligible for FPOs because we primarily worked with poultry and livestock. We hope that our efforts get acknowledged someday and receive support from the government,” he said.