Be ready to acknowledge the magical fruit COCONUT, the large oval brown hard woody husk surrounded by fibre, which houses edible white flesh and the life-saving liquid inside, on this September 2. Because World Coconut Day, designated by the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community (APCC) headquartered at Jakarta (Indonesia), is going to zero in on people to create awareness about the vital role of coconut-farming in allaying poverty, catering nutritional and health security, dragging investments, elaborating the socio-economic conditions of stakeholders of coconut industry and propagating the evolutions of the coconut industry in the member countries.
The intergovernmental commodity body APCC, formed on 2 September 1969, is being backed by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP). The same day on which APCC was formed is being observed as the World Coconut Day. All its objectives, mission and vision are pertaining to 'coconut'. Its members included are Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Kiribati, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Vietnam. Any other coconut producing country outside the Asia and Pacific may apply for associate membership. Only Jamaica and Kenya are the associate members currently.
These 18 coconut-producers yield around 90% of world's coconut production and export coconut products like copra, coconut oil, copra meal, coir fibre, desiccated coconut shell charcoal, invigorated coconut water (liquid endosperm) and its milk, coconut wood handicrafts, lotions etc.
India's connection with coconut
In India, a statutory pioneering body Coconut Development Board (CDB) was created under the Ministry of Agriculture for the increase in the productivity of coconut cultivation. Hindus in the union territory of Daman and Diu (Western India) celebrate Nariyal Purnima at the end of the monsoon, on which people throw coconuts into the Arabian Sea to revere the sea god - Varuna. Many Hindus break coconuts and offer them to the gods to bring good luck to the people. Here, people treat the three eyes on coconut shell as the three eyes of the popular Hindu deity Shiva.
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