A K100,000 freight subsidy for Garaina cocoa farmers was recently handed over to North Coast Aviation at their Nadzab base, outside Lae.
The Cocoa Board of PNG’s Momase regional coordinator, Anton Ningi, highlighted the importance of the freight subsidy program, saying a lack of infrastructure is a costly burden for our rural cocoa farmers to shoulder alone.
Cocoa development in Garaina valley, in Morobe’s Wau-Waria electorate, started in 2015, where 81,000 trees were planted within the three stations of Garasa, Omora and Garaina.
“And then we expanded from there; we continued to sustain the nursery and continued to extend the planting, which has increased now to 128,000 trees now on the ground,” Ningi stated.
“With that, it has provided us with almost 2 tonnes of cocoa that we have been moving since 2017 from Garaina.
“We started off with 5 to 7 bags then eventually, production increased to almost 2 tonnes and NCA will confirm with us; we are receiving cocoa bags of 8 to 10 bags, even 15, 16 bags on a weekly basis.”
In 2017, the first funding of K35,000 was rolled out for Garaina cocoa farmers, while K100,000 was presented in 2021. From the K135,000, a balance of K26,000 remains with North Coast Aviation.
With the recent presentation of K100,000, the accumulated total of the freight subsidy program now stands at K235,000.
“Generally, the freight cost which we are moving is at K3.50 per kilo. It had other costs involved but we had to negotiate.
“So you can imagine, a standard bag of cocoa is around 62.5 kilograms. Moving that, per bag, on a plane from Garaina valley across to here is almost K200-plus.
“So we’re lucky to have that funding available from the Government.”
North Coast Aviation chief executive officer, Geoff Thiele, said by the time commercial airfreight rates are paid, there is nothing left for the grower.
“The answer is to build more roads but when you build more roads, you have to maintain them and that becomes more of a problem in PNG,” he stated.
“The places where there’s no service transport, they need to be kept viable; and the best way to keep a village viable is to have an income. And the villages really appreciate that the Cocoa Board has decided to put a freight subsidy system in place to really keep the villages viable.”
(Staff moving cocoa bags from Garaina into the North Coast Aviation warehouse)