PANAJI, September 2:

Every household in Goa has one growing in the backyard, one story about a grandfather who climbed one, and one recipe that starts with grating one. But for years, the coconut palm that shapes Goa’s skyline, cuisine and coastline was treated by policy as an afterthought – a crop everyone assumed would look after itself. On World Coconut Day 2026, marked globally under the theme “Coconut for a Circular Economy: Building Partnership for Maximum Value,” it’s worth asking a sharper question than the usual nostalgia-soaked tribute: What has actually changed for the Goan farmer who depends on this tree for a living?

The answer, under Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant, is a coconut economy that has moved – unevenly, but visibly – from sentiment to support.

Putting a floor under the price

The most consequential shift has been the simplest one: guaranteeing that a coconut is worth something on paper, not just in the market’s mood. Under the Assured Price for Agricultural Produce Scheme rolled out in the 2023-24 state budget, the Sawant government raised the minimum support price for coconut from ₹12 to ₹15 per nut – the first revision in three years – with procurement support extending up to 50,000 nuts and ₹3.5 lakh per farmer. For a small coconut grower in Sanguem or its neighbouring talukas, that is the difference between a crop that is a hobby and one that is a livelihood.

It sits alongside similar assured-price protection for cashew and paddy, signalling something opposition critics rarely credit the government for: a recognition that Goa’s plantation crops need price stability as much as they need photo-ops.

Rebuilding a vanishing skill

Perhaps the most underappreciated intervention has nothing to do with money and everything to do with muscle memory. Goa’s coconut groves have a labour problem few outside the sector talk about: the traditional skill of climbing a coconut palm is dying out, and grove owners increasingly depend on labourers brought in from other states just to harvest their own trees.

In April 2025, the Sawant government’s Agriculture Department, working with the Coconut Development Board in Kochi, launched “Friends of the Coconut Tree” – an eight-day training programme teaching mechanised tree-climbing alongside basic cultivation practice: irrigation, fertiliser use, pest and disease identification. The first batch ran in Sanguem. Forty young trainees completed it and walked into self-employment, climbing trees for ₹60 apiece – more for distant groves. Social Welfare Minister Subhash Phal Desai called it a push to let “local youth find self-employment,” and it is hard to argue with the logic: a scheme that turns a disappearing rural skill into a wage is development that doesn’t need a ribbon-cutting to matter.

It is a small first batch. It should not stay one. But as a template – govern the supply chain, not just the price – it is the right instinct.

Turning heritage into an export case

Coconut farming in Goa was never only about the fruit. It is also toddy, and toddy is feni – Goa’s oldest and most contested spirit. In September 2025, distillers, bottlers and toddy tappers came together for the first time as the Coconut Feni Collective, pushing for Geographical Indication status after a reported sixteen-year effort, with the state’s Directorate of Science and Technology assisting with the technical documentation. The ambition is real: GI recognition and a shot at export markets, including through the India-UK trade agreement, would put a heritage product – and the tappers who climb for it – on a global shelf instead of a local one.

A national tailwind, and a state gap worth naming

Goa’s coconut push does not sit in isolation. The Union Budget for 2026-27 introduced a dedicated national Coconut Promotion Scheme aimed at replanting old and unproductive palms with high-yielding varieties – directly relevant to Goa, where many groves are ageing. Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan carried that agenda to a national stakeholders’ meet in Chennai this March, with over a thousand farmers, producer organisations and researchers in the room. Centre-state alignment on coconut is no longer aspirational; it is scheduled.

But an honest accounting must note where the state’s recent budget priorities have tilted. The 2026-27 Goa budget created a dedicated State Cashew Board with its own allocation – a real, institutional win for cashew growers. Coconut, Goa’s second-largest horticultural crop after cashew, spread across 26,683 hectares, has no equivalent standalone body yet, and its price support hasn’t been revised since 2023. That is not a reason to dismiss what has been built – the MSP floor and the climbers’ scheme are genuine, targeted interventions, not slogans. It is a reason to ask, on a day meant for the coconut itself, why the tree that built Goa doesn’t yet have the institutional architecture its cousin crop just got.

What the day should actually mark

World Coconut Day tends to produce a flood of nostalgic captions about the “tree of life.” Goa doesn’t need another one. What it needs is the harder, less photogenic work this government has started – price floors that hold, skills that get taught, and heritage products that get certified – pushed further and faster. The coconut palm has survived Goa’s coastline for centuries without much help from the state. The measure of this government, going forward, is whether it can finally return the favour.