Publications

Coconut palm provides several benefits to the human kind, and has been used since civilization. Accordingly, coconutshell can be easily collected in places where coconut meat is traditionally used in food processing. Among the variouspurposes for coconuts, 35% are used as copra, 2% for manufacturing of value added products, 11% for tender usesand 2% for seed purpose. The coconut fruit yields 40 % coconut husks containing 30 % fiber, with dustmaking up the rest. The chemical composition of coconut husks consists of cellulose, lignin, pyroligneous acid,gas, charcoal, tar, tannin, and potassium. Conversely, Coconut shell is an agricultural waste and is available inplentiful quantities throughout tropical countries worldwide. Nonetheless, the economic well-being of a farmerdepends not only on the quantity of food produced but also on the effective product and byproduct utilization as wellas the importance assigned to on-farm integration and waste utilization. This research work evaluated the efficientuse of coconut and its by-products. It concluded that effective utilisation of products/byproducts obtained fromcoconut-based agro-ecosystem remains imperative especially for rural farmers. The increasing need to promoteeffective utilisation of farm-derived produce for value addition has been recognised due to the emergence of newertechnologies and rising public awareness on the importance of waste utilisation. Hence, in a coconut-based agroecosystem,effective utilisation of product/by-product is important.