Coconut Product Diversification And Economic Empowerment Of Women In The Philippines
The paper highlights the gender roles in the Philippines coconut industry and goes on to explain that women empowerment in the coconut industry is not so much a gender issue than it is economic. The status of women in the Philippines is perhaps better compared to many in Asian countries. In the coconut industry, planting and gathering are basically man's responsibilities. Copra-making from husk to splitting is male work though occasionally women may do these work as well. In the industrial setting, such as quality control laboratories are dominated by females. In the desiccated coconut factories, females are in the peeling line, removing testa from the de-husked nuts prior to shredding. Manning the machines are men. However, in the village technologies, women predominate.. In short, work, involving more physical exertion is relegated to men while finer work is the woman’s domain. In terms of production diversifications, the author outlined a number of coconut products using village technology. The paper concludes with some poverty alleviation measures at the village level that can be undertaken such as product diversification at farm level processing, integrated to maximize raw material use as well as cooperative marketing.