During the opening of the Jiwaka Maket Minj Buying Point by the Innovative Agro Industry and the Jiwaka Development Corporation, Chairman and Executive Officer of the IAI, Ilan Weiss.
Innovative Agro Industries have supported the concept of Jiwaka Mini Buying Point by sharing their experience in Hela province.
IAI chairman Ilan Weiss has expressed that going around PNG they have discovered and proven that despite all the cash crops and agriculture resources that are abundant in the communities, there is no value chain in existence.
“That is why products become very costly at the end of the value chain.”
He said in Hela province, two poultry projects were set up at the invitation of the late Hela Governor, Anderson Agiru; one for chicken eggs and one for chicken meat.
He explained that the idea is to import stock feed from overseas which elevates the price of the chicken at the end of the value chain.
“What happens in PNG, usually when you grow chicken, you import the feed from overseas. So in Hela we changed that vicious cycle. We engaged farmers and told them to ‘grow corn, grow maize, we will buy the maize, we will grow the chicken in the farm, and then we will sell it to the consumers.”
Weiss further explained that a live chicken in Hela would normally cost K50 but today with the innovative agro’s input, the chicken costs only K25.
“Just by moving the production in-house, in-country keeping all the benefits in the community.”