Three Indians, including K.K. Haridas, who passed away in September 2012, will be honoured at the 51st session of Asian and Pacific Coconut Community (APCC) meet here for their contributions to the coconut sector. The APCC session will get under way here on Monday. The other two persons are O.V.R. Somasundaram, a farmer from Pollachi in Tamil Nadu, and C.R. Vijayakumar, a coconut farmer from Karnataka.
The three are winners of international awards and have made “immense contribution towards the sector,” said a statement issued by Coconut Development Board here.
Dr. Haridas had carried out a research on the impact of coconut oil as a cooking medium on cardiovascular risk factors. He was the principal investigator in a research study sponsored by the Coconut Development Board with a private medical institution here. The study was the first-of-its-kind in the world, which would lead to many clinical studies on coconut oil, the press release said.