Coconut-based Women Entrepreneurship Initiative

Dear Friend,

Greetings and thank you very much for your continuing support to our project improving the lives of women farmers involved in coconut farming. Coconuts are grown 10 meters apart and this situation is ideal in the growing of other crops in the open spaces in between the coconuts. There are a lot of shade crops with high value that can be raised and where income is generated by farmers. This reporting period we are happy to report that the crops grown under coconuts by our farmers is starting to bear fruit and these are high-valued fruit trees like cacao, lanzones, durian, mango, among others. We have about 1,200 women farmers being supported this way and this is indeed great news. Hoping that you will continue to support us. Thank you very much.

Very sincerely yours,

Cora Sayre

Dear Friend,

Warm greetings and thank you very much for your generous support to our project supporting women entrepreneurs who are coconut farmers. The prices of copra which is the dried meat of coconuts fluctuates and there is no way of knowing or predicting price decrease or increase. Farmers in this way is very vulnerable and we want to increase their economic base by supporting the intercropping of food crops to coconut farms. We are starting to train women how to utilize used sacks and other containers in order to grow sweet potato under coconuts. Sweet potato matures in about 6 months and the resulting crop is high in nutrients and well-loved by consumers as main food or snacks. We uses colored sweet potato because they are more nutrient dense. We have produced for this period more thank 2,000 sweet potato grown in sacks and we will distribute this to women farmers. Hoping for your continuing support. Thank you very much.

Very sincerely yours,

Cora Sayre

Dear Friend,

Warm greetings and thank you very much for your generous support to our initiative helping women entrepreneurs who are coconut-based. Our barrios are coconut-producing and the situation of women entrepreneurs are not very good because of a host of factors such as the covid-19 pandemic, climate change and poor soil fertility. This reporting period we focused our support in the production of organic soil ammendment coming from coconut husk by shredding them using powerful shredders. The shredded husk are good materials in producing organic fertilizer and soil ammendment since they retain moisture and make the soil soft and friable which is best for plants. The shredded coconut husk dust is used by the farmers themselves and the surplus they sell to gardeners in the neighborhood. We aim to scale this up in order to fully utilize coconut husk which is not fully utilized in our area. Again thank you very much for your support.

Very sincerely yours,

Cora Sayre

Dear Friend,

Warm greetings and thank you very much for your generous support to our initiative providing coconut-based women entrepreneurs with assistance. This reporting period we are able to assist a total of 72 women in expanding their coconut-based livelihood activities. Growing coconuts is advantageous for women entrepreneurs because there are a lot of farm-based livelihood activities that can be done, with planting distance of coconuts at 10 meters x 10 meters. The understory can be grown with a lot of other crops as well as they are able to raise small animals like goats, pigs and free-range chicken. There are the livelihood options we are providing to women entrepreneurs with the agreement that they shall pay in kind, for example, offspring of goats that we are able to pass-on to other waiting beneficiaries. Thank you very much for your continuing support to this initiative. 

Very sincerely yours,

Cora Sayre

Dear Friend,

Warm greetings and thank you very much for your generous support to our initiative providing livelihood support for coconut-based women farmers. During this reporting period we are happy to report that the price of copra which is the dried meat of coconuts has gone up and farmers are happy with it. Hoping that this will continue. During this reporting period, we are focusing our attention to the provision of small loans for on-farm livelihood activities and focusing on the beneficiaries to pay in kind which we think is easy for them. We are piloting this approach with 35 women farmers and we hope that this will suceed so that we can expand. Besides this we are preparing to launch a long-term initiative for coconut farmers affected by Super Typhoon Rai last December. Most of those affected are coconut farmers and coconuts have been destroyed. Hoping for your continuing support. Thank you very much.

Very sincerely yours,

Cora