Workers prepare the ground of an old coconut plantation where trees have been felled for replanting at the San Ramon Centre. - - Coconut Research and Development. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is assisting the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) with a UNDP-funded project on coconut research and development. Among other studies, PCA is researching to find high hybrids and varieties of coconut trees for a nationwide replanting programme in the 1980s. Ordinary tree varieties produce about 40 nuts a year while hybrids and improved varieties produce 5 to 6 times more. Filipino 1977 production totalled about 9.2 thousand million nuts with a copra equivalent of 2 million metric tons. The replanting programme would boost the Philippines'position as a major world coconut oil supplier. For the 1970-79 period PCA allotted 65 million pesos (about $8,845,000) for research while the UNDP/FAO contribution was more than $2 million in equipment, experts' services and fellowships. Work on plant breeding, trials of improved hybrid, and varieties, agronomic studies and timber utilisation are undertaken at the San Ramon Coconut Research Centre near Zamboanga City and at Davao, in Mindanao, while research into Cadang-Cadang disease is in progress at Guinobatan.