The EU inspired developments referred to in the October blog have, as expected, lead to me becoming ‘Acting Secretariat’ of the National Coconut Association – basically, Mr Make-It-Happen. Getting a sketch out for discussion is easy to the local processors and exporters – they have e-mail addresses! But these guys are currently moving at Vanuatu pace, the deadline of 4 December passing undisturbed by responses. Involving the actual growers out in the rural communities is another matter. Local leaders need to assemble groups of growers to facilitate presentations and discussions. The first roll out of my Powerpoint presentation, in Bislama, was 3 December up at Port Olry – our second home. The photo shows local leader Louis (of Chez Louis, well known to Dagy, Carol and ourselves) introducing me. The other is self-eveident.

There were some good questions afterwards which required a joint effort to answer. So far the acceptance of the need for the Association is uniformly complete. What the members achieve through it in the future will be up to them. The objective is for there to be robust dialogue, the sharing of informantion and concerns at a local, then regional, then national level. This is intended to lead to honest representation of the private sector at the Coconut Working Group, where productive interaction with the public sector commences. That’s the theory.

Another boost was the visit from Uron Salum, Executive Director of the Asia Pacific Coconut Community.

He was on an official APCC visit to Vanuatu with plenty of high level meetings in Port Vila. But he had an interest in the VARTC coconut progeny research data and came up to see us. Photo left, from the left is: me, Uron, Dr Roger Malapa (VARTC), Tiata Sileye (VARTC) and Philippe Panpan (Dept. Agriculture).Botched flight tickets cost Uron the Friday I had organised so Louise and I met him off his inbound flight at 7 pm and off to a superb meal at Deco Stop we went. The ‘tok tok’ was fasciniating – Uron’s life has been coconuts. From a small island in PNG, he treasures the village and rural base of the industry.

His 6 year tenure heading the World’s largest coconut organisation sees him based in Jakarta, Indonesia, so it was an easy choice to take him up to

Chez Louis at Port Olry after the morning’s VARTC meeting. The introduction  to Louis on the veranda of one of the beautiful beach bungalows was a treat to perform – photo right. Instead of staying one night and returning to the thriving metropolis of Luganville, he stayed all 3 at Chez Louis. We learned so much from him: that Vanuatu’s coconut industry is 20 to 30 years behind other coconut countries; that Vanuatu has not been paying its membership fees; that paid up membership delivers multiple benefits, for example access to technical experts; references to the countless products that may derive from this incredible tree and a lot of colourful anecdotes. It was inspirational stuff and the beginning of a valuable relationship.