Cocoa Industry

These are some of the prospects when the Australian trade delegation travels to ARoB today.

Gary Aylwood, a member of the Cairns Chamber of Commerce and Tradelinked group, says the delegation consists of consultants who will provide training for local agricultural business and assist in the kick starting of old technology.

“In the case of the agricultural sector, we’ve got some consultants that can help farmers and co-ops to improve their yields and they’ll be having some discussion there to assist, particularly in the cocoa industry,” says Aylwood.

The roll out of planting new cocoa trees begun in 2014 and is benefiting two million farmers in the country.

Cocoa Board Papua New Guinea (CBPNG) chief executive officer Boto Gaupu said they’ve planted half a million cocoa trees under the three years nursery cocoa project.

Gaupu said they have half a million more trees in the nurseries throughout the country that are yet to be planted under this project.

The cocoa industry to date has provincial and district cocoa growers, a total of 12 nurseries with 500 million trees in the nurseries throughout the country.

The cocoa extension training was conducted by the agriculture officers from Ramu NiCo Community Affairs department at a selected cocoa farm near Malle village in Astrolabe Bay.

A number of women farmers participated in chupon budding with their male counterparts during the training because they also have cocoa gardens which they want to manage properly.

Cocoa chupon budding is a rehabilitation technique farmers can adopt to increase production.  

Chupon budding may be encouraged to be performed on old and unproductive cocoa trees.

The industry in the country sits third on the commodity export listing, generating K260 million into the nation’s revenue purse in 2015.

CBPNG chief executive officer Boto Gaupu speaking at the 2016 Agriculture Leaders’ Summit said CBPNG is going into Kina for Kina counterpart funding with districts to improve yield and also quality.

“Working with district is the way forward for the industry.”

He added that with support from the District Development Authority will help in the project getting the desired result.