Papua New Guinea is very rich in natural resources and cash crops. One particular cash crop that is finding its way out of Madang Province and into the international market is vanilla.
“Kamapim” is a Belgian company dealing with vanilla, buying from locals and exporting to Belgium and other overseas nations. They encounter many farmers from different districts in Madang and many others from other provinces as well.
For now, they are the only vanilla buyers in Madang at the moment.
One of their model is Sustainable agricultural practices for farmers, especially with cash crops, by starting with Vanilla. They connect farmers to the market and enable farmers to attract buyers into Madang. Kamapim encourages a better livelihood through vanilla selling.
Kamapim has pillars that they work upon, which are:
- Environment – No logging and no mining for farmers and their land
- Leadership – through promoting farmers to collaborate in associations for vanilla so that they reap benefits as a whole
- Livelihood – Ensuring farmers are able to sustain themselves with their production all year round
- Gender equality – Men and women are encouraged to sell vanilla. If husband is selling a portion of his sales must be given or deposited into wife’s account
- Financial inclusion – all farmers including their associations must have accounts
- Upskilling – All farmers receive training on crop cultivation and treatments
According to Mark Bayyom, field officer, most of their pillars and model of the company strives to meet Global targets as stipulated by the Government. And in time they would like to move to other cash crops such as Cocoa too.
For now they are more concerned about quality of the vanilla they buy as they will have targets that they have to meet and in PNG most of the cash crops have seasons’ and periods that it is a challenge to maintain stock and provide to markets in a timely schedule.
Currently they partner with the Marketing Development Fund, World Conservation Society, MiBank, Westpac, the World Bank and other Government departments and entities.
Kamapim has full databases of farmers all over the Madang region and say that most of their quality grades come from Inland Sumkar and Middle Ramu.