Coconut, the versatile tree crop is cultivated in an area of over 1.92 million hectares in India with an annual production of 14.00 billion nuts and it contributes over 70,000 million rupees to the country’s GDP. The domestic market for coconut at present is confined to coconut oil whose price is highly volatile and depends on other vegetable oils. The domestic market price of coconut is in fact centered on the price of coconut oil. Owing to high cost of production, chiefly accounted for high labour cost, the domestic price of coconut oil is often two to three times higher than the international price. Though the domestic price is higher than the international price, the farmers are not benefited by this. Further, the situation is also posing the threat of import of large quantities of coconut products to India from other countries and will lead to further fall in domestic price of coconut and also adversely affect the economic viability of many coconut processing units in the country. The coconut sector has to be equipped to face these challenges by evolving ways and means to reduce cost of production and scaling up the production of selective items that India has the advantage. By adopting cost effective and location specific scientific cultivation practices, the productivity could be enhanced which in turn will reduce the cost of production of coconut. Enterprise diversification and community level value addition are the other viable options to overcome the difficulties caused by the price fluctuations. To strengthen the value chain involving production, community level processing of coconut, and marketing of coconut and its value added prodcuts, a consortium of three research institutions viz., Central Plantation Crops Research Institute, Kasaragod; Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI), Peechi; and Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL), Mysore, is formed as a part of National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP).

Consortium Leader	:	Dr. George V. Thomas Director, CPCRI, Kasaragod Tel : 04994-232333, Fax : 04994-232322 E-mail: georgevthomas@yahoo.com
Consortium Principal Investigator	:	Er. K. Madhavan Principal Scientist, CPCRI, Kasaragod Tel : 04994-232894, Fax : 04994-232322 Email: madhavancpcri@gmail.com
Co-Principal Investigators	:	Dr. A. S. Bawa Scientist G, Director, DFRL, Mysore - 570011 Tel: 0821-2473290, Fax: 0821-2473468 Email: dfrlmysore@sancharnet.in
		Dr. T. K. Dhamodaran Scientist (Wood Sci. & Tech.), KFRI, Peechi - 680653 Tel : 0487-2699062, Fax : 0487-2699249 Email: tkd@kfri.org