The sustainability of coconut cultivation and industry is a conundrum, particularly in a situation where the trade in coconut is monopsonistic in nature there being substantially large number of producers and few oliogopolistic buyers. In India, the bulk of the producers are small and marginal. Because of the globalization of the domestic economy, the Government of India is striving hard to make the domestic coconut economy globally competitive. The Coconut Development Board of India is the mandatory agency for the integrated development of coconut cultivation and industry in the country. It is believed that technological advance will inevitably solve the problems of low productivity, low rate of return from the unit holdings and product diversification and by-product utilization for value additions. The major thrust areas identified for the immediate intervention was to enhance the productivity of existing coconut plantations by adopting short term and long term measures, to promote appropriate coconut based farming systems and to support the adoption of secondary agriculture for product diversification and by-product utilizations for value additions thereby achieve inclusive growth and sustainable development in Indian Coconut Industry.

The prevalence of old and unproductive palms, poor genetic base of the planting material under cultivation, over populated stands of both coconut and other trees in the holdings, poor management and severe incidence of pest and diseases are the major attributes identified for the low productivity of coconut in the traditional coconut growing states. One of the strategies for arresting the productivity decline and bringing about productivity improvement is to improve the general agricultural base with large scale rejuvenation of the coconut gardens. With these objectives, the Govt. of India launched a Pilot Project for Replanting and rejuvenation of coconut gardens in selected districts of Kerala and the Union Territory of Andaman & Nicobar Islands 2009-10.  Kerala and Andaman & Nicobar Islands have a predominantly coconut based economy. The declining productivity has been a major cause of concern among the policy makers. An analysis has shown that the prevalence of old and senile palms, severe incidence of root (wilt) disease and poor management are the major reasons for the low productivity of coconut in Kerala.  In A&N Islands, low productivity is mainly due to the existence of a large number of old and senile palms. The Coconut Development Board with active involvement of Local Bodies, the Department of Agriculture of the concerned state and Union Territory successfully
implemented the program on a cluster basis with a farmer participatory mode. The goal of
the project was to cut and remove about 1.4 million old and unproductive palms from 0.2
million ha of coconut gardens, rejuvenate about 0.13 million ha remaining coconut palms
and replant the gap with disease resistant, hybrid and dwarf quality coconut seedlings by
providing financial support of the Government. All the coconut growers with at least 10
palms in the holding in the project areas numbering to about 0.4 million were benefited
under the scheme.