Bocayo industry on brink of extinction
STA. BARBARA—The future is not looking sweet for the bocayo industry.
Makers of this coconut candy, which used to be among the top livelihood products in the province, are slowly closing shop with only 40% of the original number now believed to be in operation.
Eleazar Parohinog, provincial coconut development manager of the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), told The PUNCH that the bocayo industry’s decline is due to lack of raw materials and high price of coconuts following the popularity of coconut juice.
Parohinog said mature coconut fruits used to make bocayo are now harvested early for buko juice.
He added that the high demand for coconut has also affected the raw material supply.
The indiscriminate cutting of coconut trees for lumber has also been a factor, he added.
The affected bocayo producers are in Barangay Bacayao Sur in Dagupan City, where the word bocayo is actually derived from, as well as in Barangay Pangapisan in the capital town of Lingayen.
Bocayo, one of the most popular Pangasinan-made sweets, is made from grated mature coconut mixed with politipot, a sweetener derived from sugarcane or just plain brown sugar.
In Dagupan City, there now remains only one registered bocayo producer from 60 in the 1980s.
Small-scale producers with a capitalization of less than P20,000 are no longer required to register for humanitarian reasons.
The farmgate price of a coconut fruit for buko juice is P8 and this is sold at as high as P15 each in the retail market.
On the other hand, a mature coconut used for bocayo is sold in the market from P18 to P20 each.
Some bocayo processors now resort to making coconut pastilles, offered in several restaurants in the province, made from less mature grated coconut, which is cheaper, but has a shorter shelf life because of its condensed milk ingredient.
Pangasinan has the highest number of coconut trees in North and Central Luzon areas with about one million trees planted across the province, particularly in the western part.
Parohinog said he hopes that the PCA’s program on planting coconut trees, particularly along the long coastline of Pangasinan will have the full support of Gov. Amado Espino Jr.
“It’s one of our wealth. It’s a tree of life and we must exert efforts to save it,” Parohinog said. #
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