Some 15 outstanding coconut farmers and 11 coconut exporters were honoured in a ceremony on April 10 in the Mekong Delta of Ben Tre, part of the fourth annual local Coconut Festival.

Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee lauded the tireless effort of local farmers to maintain coconut production even as coconut prices fell dramatically.

He encouraged the growers to continue developing the coconut industry by applying advanced technology in farming and boosting the values of coconut products, increasing their availability in international markets.

Ben Tre province is home to 163,000 households farming on 63,000 hectares of coconut trees. They produce 500 million of coconuts and ship about 200 million USD worth of coconut products abroad every year.

In the first quarter of this year, Ben Tre earned 35.2 million USD from exports of coconut products, a decrease of 16.9 percent year on year.-VNA