THE competitive price of coconuts now now makes many owners regret having cut their coconut trees earlier, according to the provincial head of the government coconut agency.

Eleazar Parohinog of the Philippine Coconut Authority said that young coconuts now sell at a farmgate price of P8. Retailers sell from P15 to P25 per nut.

He said that coconut farmers now no longer worry where to market their produce as buyers themselves go to their places unlike before.

The demand for coco lumber prompted many to cut their coconut trees.

Those owners are now regretting their action because of the huge demand for young coconuts (buko) which became a hit in the market for their nutritional and health values Parohinog told the Pantongtongan Tayo radio program of the Philippine Information Agency over Radyo ng Bayan-DZMQ last Tuesday.

Copra, dried coconut meat which is processed into cooking oil and other products, no longer attracts businessmen in Pangasinan as before. The reason may be the cost involved in the copra business unlike selling buko, Parohinog noted.

The demand for buko is so much that some businessmen get their supply from other places like Aurora province.

Bolinao town is the source of buko sold along the roadsides in Mangaldan. San Fabian and Binmaley, it was gathered.