Jamaica’s coconut production has climbed 73 per cent since 2021 on the back of a sustained replanting drive, but current drought conditions threatens that recovery, with one St Thomas grower reporting output down by half this year.
“The factory is working two to three days per week now, as against five days per week normally, and we have big orders to fulfil,” Noah Black of Michael Black Farms Limited told the Financial Gleaner.
Coconut production islandwide rose 22.7 per cent to 209.6 million nuts in 2025, up from 170.8 million in 2024, according to the Planning Institute of Jamaica’s 2025 Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica (ESSJ). The 2025 output equates to 73 per cent higher than the output in 2021 at 121.2 million nuts.
The ESSJ credited the expansion to rehabilitation work by the Coconut Industry Board (CIB).
“Guided by a strategic five per cent annual growth objective, the CIB supported registered farmers through the distribution of free fertilisers, weed control grants, and high-yielding, disease-resistant seedlings. These interventions strengthened resilience within the industry and contributed to the sustained increase in output,” the survey stated.
Hurricane Melissa, which devastated the island last October, had limited impact on St Thomas, St Mary, Portland and St Ann, the parishes that produce most of the country’s coconuts, the ESSJ said.
CIB General Manager Shaun Cameron traced the turnaround to a replanting and farmer-support programme launched after decades of losses.
“We lost nine million coconut trees from the 1970s up to the 2000s due to lethal yellowing and Hurricane Gilbert…In order to save the industry, we implemented a planting programme. It was challenging initially because no farmer wanted to invest where there was this particular rampant disease that was killing the sector,” he said.
Lethal yellowing, a fatal phytoplasma disease, kills coconut palms and other palm species within three to six months of the first symptoms. Hurricane Gilbert, which struck in 1988, flattened most of the standing coconut trees in the eastern parishes.
Disease-resistant varieties, technical support, marketing and farmer training have since rebuilt the sector, Cameron said. The CIB also courted a new class of grower.
“I started reaching out to business people, retired professionals who have the capacity and have land to get involved in coconut. It’s a low-maintenance crop and you have the expertise of the CIB to help you … . It takes three to five years for a coconut tree to start to fruit, so you can see the trees that were planted in 2021 are starting to fruit now,” he said.
Cameron named St Catherine as an emerging coconut parish, while St Elizabeth growers now plant to supply fresh coconut water to the western tourism belt. Hurricane Melissa, however, destroyed a coconut nursery at Barton Isle in St Elizabeth. A large landowner in the west has also started establishing a coconut orchard with CIB support, he said.
The drought has hit Michael Black Farms even as it expands. The company has secured a 50-year lease on 250 acres beside its original farm at Nutts River, St Thomas, bringing its holdings to about 950 acres, 800 of them planted in coconuts. It employs about 150 people.
The farm planted about 4,000 coconut seedlings over the past year but halted planting as water ran short. It has also cut back herbicide spraying to reduce fire risk, Black said.
Michael Black Farms specialises in dry coconuts for oil production and sells 3,000 to 5,000 nuts a week to vendors. It distributes its Miss Dawn coconut oil through Massy, the CIB, and its outlet in Morant Bay.
Black remains bullish on demand. “The outlook for the market is very positive. Coconut is one of the new faces of agriculture. Every part of the coconut can be used to make something. As for the jelly coconuts, nobody can produce what the market needs now,” he said.
At Coronation Market in downtown Kingston, jelly coconuts sell for J$300 to J$450 each, and many shoppers fill recycled bottles of up to five gallons with fresh coconut water.
The National Compliance and Regulatory Authority, which enforces compulsory national standards on local and imported goods, listed 21 registered packaged coconut water manufacturers on its website as at August 2025.
luke.douglas@gleanerjm.com
