World Coconut Day
Next: September 2, 2027
The tree of life gets a day.
The story
Where it comes from
World Coconut Day marks the founding on 2 September 1969 of the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community (now the International Coconut Community), an intergovernmental body based in Jakarta that represents the countries producing most of the world's coconuts. The day was created to raise the crop's profile and support the smallholders who grow it.
How it's celebrated
Producer countries (Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia) hold conferences, farmers' fairs and cooking events; elsewhere it is an excuse for coconut water, nasi lemak, kaya, laksa or a piña colada. Social media fills with recipes and coconut-tree facts.
Did you know
- The coconut is called the 'tree of life' in the Philippines because every part of the palm is used: food, drink, oil, fibre, timber, roofing and fuel.
- Coconuts can float for months and germinate on a distant shore, which is how the palm spread across the tropics before people carried it.
- Indonesia, the Philippines and India together grow around three-quarters of the world's coconuts.
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