Rehabilitation efforts into the coffee berry borer outbreak in the country continue with new confirmed infested coffee gardens this week.
In the Asaro valley of Eastern Highlands Province, a team of extension officers have been pruning coffee trees, spraying insecticide and carrying out cherry stripping on coffee trees for the last two months.
Chief Executive Officer of the Coffee Industry Corporation Charles Dambui, expressed concerns on latest reports provided by its technical team that CBB infested gardens had jumped to a whopping 67 gardens from initial 16 gardens in the Asaro area since March.
250 kilograms of infected cherry beans were discarded and burned over the long weekend saving what could have been a loss of about 11 thousand kina worth of parchment coffee going at a price of K4.50.
Salome Vincent reports