Ā āThe project seeks creative ways of transforming coconut waste into economically and environmentally sustainable products,ā he said.
Currently, coconut from his farm is certified by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) as organic. Mr Charuwat said he also planned to transition his farm to meet the Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) standard, regarded as a new holistic standard raising the bar for how food is produced. ROC uses the USDA Organic standard as a baseline. From there, it adds important criteria and benchmarks that incorporate the major pillars of regenerative organic agriculture into one certification. The goal of ROC is to promote holistic agriculture practices, increase soil organic matter over time, and sequester carbon below and above ground, which could be a tool to mitigate climate change. He hopes to provide economic stability to his farm and workers with these efforts.
āInternational standards will boost competitiveness of our coconuts and open more market opportunities, with the competitiveness situation we are facing, we have to always seek market opportunities and improve our farming management and our products,ā he said.