BY TONY IROGA
The Commodities Export Marketing Authority (CEMA) has again reiterated how it is helping copra farmers throughout the country, especially with its Management Fee which the former government had removed.
CEMA CEO Colin Yow in a statement last week explained that the levy of $3.05 which it had introduced March 19, 2026 on copra exporters had aimed to help farmers, enable CEMA do its mandated work of helping farmers better, and target exporters who he said was making exorbitant profits from the trade.
The copra exporters have declined to comment, when sought by this paper through their spokesperson Bob Pollard last week.
In their response to CEMA on May 25, 2026, the exporters had denied CEMA’s claim that they were making huge profits. They challenged CEMA to publish its audited financial results for public to better understand the real situation.
What CEMA is and who it serves
CEMA is the Commodity Export Marketing Authority — an Authority established with one core responsibility: to promote, develop and protect the commodity industries that rural Solomon Islands depends upon. At the heart of that responsibility is a mandate that CEMA takes seriously every day: to ensure that producers receive the best possible returns for the commodities they work so hard to produce.
Copra farming is the backbone of rural livelihoods across this country. It is the income that puts children through school, pays for medicine, and sustains communities in provinces far from Honiara. CEMA exists to serve the men and women who do that work — to be the institution that stands firmly in their corner, speaks clearly on their behalf, and acts without hesitation when their interests are at stake.
“CEMA does not exist to serve the market. CEMA exists to serve the farmers who make the market possible,” the CEMA statement said.
The copra management fee — built for farmers
The copra management fee of SBD $3.05 per kilogramme is a legal instrument established under the CEMA Act. Every dollar it collects is required to be returned directly to the copra sector — not to administration, not to any other fund, but back into the industry and the farming communities that generated it. The management fee is, in every meaningful sense, a farmers’ fund.
This fee has existed for more than 20 years. CEMA first gazetted it at SBD 2 cents per kg in August 2004, raised it to SBD 3 cents in January 2005, and increased it to SBD 5 cents in April 2012. From that point, the fee was not reviewed for 14 years. During those 14 years, the costs that farmers face — fuel, transport, basic goods — all rose. But the fund meant to support them remained too small to make a real difference. The reset to SBD $3.05 per kg in March 2026 was CEMA’s long-overdue acknowledgement that farmers deserved more — and that the fund created in their name needed to be strong enough to actually serve them.
What the management fee delivers for farmers
The management fee gives CEMA the financial means to do the work that farmers have needed for a very long time. It funds regular transport access by landing craft to all nine provinces — reaching farming communities in even the most remote locations on schedules that farmers can rely upon. It funds CEMA’s direct buying presence, so that every farmer has a genuine choice and is never left dependent on a single buyer or a single price. It funds copra bags and quality control — practical support that lowers what farmers spend and raises the value of what they sell. It funds coconut replanting, because CEMA understands that without investment in the trees today, farming families face a diminished future tomorrow. And it builds a price stability reserve, so that CEMA can step into the market and protect farmer incomes when buying activity falls away and prices come under pressure.
For the farming families of Malaita, Makira, Choiseul, Isabel, Temotu, the Weather-coast and the outer islands, these services are not abstractions. They are the practical difference between a system that works for them and one that does not. CEMA designed the management fee with those families in mind — and every dollar it collected was a dollar committed to changing their conditions for the better.
How CEMA stood beside farmers — the record
From the day the management fee took effect on March 19, 2026, CEMA monitored the market closely and kept its attention firmly on farmers. When buying prices fell sharply in parts of the market — with some farmers receiving as little as SBD $1 to SBD $1.50 per kg after facilitation costs – CEMA acted without delay.
CEMA entered the market immediately. CEMA bought copra from local buyers at SBD $6 per kg and paid farmers SBD $4 per kg – the same fair price they had received before the management fee came into effect. In the first 39 days alone, CEMA purchased 901 metric tonnes of copra. Farmers across the country had a real, fairly priced option. They were not abandoned to the market. They were not left to accept whatever was offered. CEMA was there — present, buying, and paying a price that reflected what farmers’ work was worth.
Throughout that period, CEMA’s message to every farming community was clear – the reduced prices that had appeared in some parts of the market were not something farmers had to accept. CEMA’s commitment to a fair farmgate price was not a position held when it was easy. It was a commitment held when it mattered most — and CEMA delivered on it.
901 metric tonnes purchased at a fair price for farmers in 39 days. That is what Farmers First looks like — not in words, but in action.
CEMA’S COMMITMENT CONTINUES
The copra management fee was repealed on 28 April 2026. CEMA notes this and has continued to monitor the market with the same care and the same commitment to farmer welfare that has guided CEMA from the beginning.
Since the repeal, CEMA has continued to buy copra at SBD $6 per kilogram. That has not changed — because CEMA’s commitment to farmers does not begin and end with any single policy instrument. CEMA is in the market today. CEMA is buying today. And CEMA’s price remains the highest available to farmers. CEMA will welcome any development in the market that sees farmers earning more — because more for farmers is the only outcome that matters to this Authority.
What the period since 19 March has demonstrated clearly is that CEMA’s presence as an active, credible buyer with a fair price is the most direct protection available to copra farmers. When CEMA is in the market, farmers have a genuine choice. When farmers have a genuine choice, their bargaining position is stronger and their returns are better. That is the practical value of what the management fee funded — and it is the value CEMA is determined to provide, in every form available to it, for as long as farmers need it.
CEMA’s answer to every copra farmer in Solomon Islands is the same today as it was on 19 March, and the same as it will be tomorrow: we are here, we are buying, and we will not leave you without a fair price.
CEMA is here for farmers
CEMA’s door is open to every copra farmer and every rural community that depends on this industry. CEMA listens to farmers. CEMA’s decisions are shaped by what farmers experience, what farmers need, and what will genuinely improve their lives and livelihoods. That is not a principle CEMA applies selectively. It is the foundation on which this Authority operates.
Any farmer, local buyer or rural community with questions about copra pricing, CEMA’s buying programme, or the services the management fee is designed to fund is encouraged to reach out to CEMA directly. This Authority exists to serve you — and serving you means being accessible, transparent and honest about what CEMA is doing and why.
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