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In Focus:
Colega East Timor
The coconut palm is known as the tree of life. It provides food, drink, fibre, and oil and has been cultivated for thousands of years across the world. The food provided is nutritious and easy to digest and is used in cooking and in traditional healing in many cultures. Among its many benefits, coconut oil has been identified as possessing significant anti viral, anti fungal and anti-bacterial properties, and is known to be rich in Lauric fatty acid, a substance that provides support for the immune system. Colega is a NASAA certified organic company based in East Timor, whose production operation is helping to regenerate activity in the area, through capitalising on an abundance of this natural resource.
History of Coconut Production
A large area of land on the southern side of Timor Leste was developed for coconut production during Colonial Portuguese times. During the Indonesian occupation the plantations were mostly left untended.
After the 1999 Referendum of Independence, villagers reclaimed the land and people began to utilise the coconuts for copra production. This was very small in scale and the copra was of little value.
Enter Vicente Ximenes. A man with an idea, Vicente visited the area several times, having been active in the region during Indonesian occupation, and assessed the possibility of creating a profitable enterprise from the plantation that would benefit the local communities.
Formation of Colega
This possibility developed into a company called Colega, which now has a processing factory based in the village of Luka, within the plantation area. The factory purchases coconuts from over 200 families in the region, with labour supplied from Luka and two other villages on a rotational basis. This provides employment for each village for two weeks out of every six, with up to sixty people employed. Another twenty people work as permanent staff for the processing plant.
Prior to the set up of the factory, the villages experienced outbreaks of social unrest due to the chronic unemployment of the region and the social fragmentation resulting from 25 years of Indonesian occupation. Since production started at the Colega factory, families have returned to live, with new houses being built and revived enthusiasm for the future of the area at all levels of Timor Leste society.
Vicente launched his visionary idea in line with recommendations from a feasibility study funded by the German Technical Corporation (GTZ). GTZ is a non-government support agency active in Timor Leste since Independence. The agency retains an ongoing interest in the project, and continues to examine the possibility of using this model in other ventures in the region.
Production Setup
The factory houses shredders to extract the meal from the coconut shell, dryers to remove excess moisture from the meal, and rack and pinion presses to extract the oil from the dried meal. The operation is equipped with state of the art Direct Micro Expelling processing units, established with the assistance of NASAA certified operator 'Kokonut Pacific', an Australian based company with experience in similar projects in the Asia Pacific region. The DME process does not allow heating above 60 degrees Celsius, retaining the important nutrients in the end product and allowing the oil to truthfully claim to be Extra Virgin in quality.
The equipment and the process are simple and the factory itself is a tin-roofed open building set among the coconuts. The workers are trained in hygiene and safety as well as their core task. Permanent staff act as Floor Managers and supervisors for each team on each shift. This overcomes the problems of the rotational nature of the workforce.
Future Directions
Colega now sells oil into the Australian marketplace and is looking for outlets for their other products. The oil is destined for bottling for human consumption as well as for use in certified organic cosmetics.
Vicente and his team are very keen to see the project grow to include other coconut products such as desiccated meal, fresh nuts and fibre products. He believes that the venture could be used as a template to revive other plantations and perhaps develop other industries across Timor, as part of the regeneration of the country. The village system is very strong in this region and the village chiefs have thrown their full support behind Colega.
This might be another case of the coconut truly being the tree of life.
[Article authored by NASAA Director Kathe Purvis ' reproduced from Organic Insights, March 2005]
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