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Preserving and strengthening the Pacific's booming coconut industry has been discussed in Samoa at the annual Pacific Week of Agriculture. The discussion was led by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) which is running seven coconut projects in the region worth $US5.4 million. Among the projects is a collaboration to create a new gene bank in Fiji and Samoa for Pacific coconut palms. ACIAR's research program manager for horticulture, Irene Kernot, said there was a diverse variety of coconut palms in the region that needed to be protected.
