360 cattle in Morobe Province will be shipped to Launakalana, in Central Province, this week, by the Livestock Development Corporation.
300 will be from Erap Station, in the Huon Gulf district, while 60 were bought from farmers at Sialum, Tewai-Siassi.
Managing director of the Livestock Development Corporation, Terry Koim, outlined that the Erap Cattle Ranch was rundown and neglected until the formation of the Marape-Steven cabinet in 2019.
A year after the formation of the new government, LDC started restoration work on its cattle ranch.
“When there was a change in government in 2019, we decided to take over this place and we reached an agreement with the (then) Department of Agriculture and Livestock to revive this place, as directed by the prime minister and also, it was captured in the Medium-Term Development Plan III for the national cattle breeding program,” he stated.
“We have done this and we were able to bring it back to where it is today.
“Erap will be used as a cattle breeding and distribution centre for Morobe Province and for other centres across the country.
“From here, we will bring cattle to the Southern region, we will bring them to the Sepik and Madang provinces, we’d also be bringing them across to the New Guinea Islands region.
“From here, we’ll also put them on trucks and truck them up to the Highlands.
“So we are starting today. There are cattle right at my back. There are about 300 of them. They will be shipped to Launakalana, in Central Province.
“LDC has a property in Launakalana that measures up to 4,500 hectares of state lease under our custody. So, we want to bring all these cattle to breed and distribute to farmers in Central Province.
“This will be the first of many shipments to be made from this ranch to other parts of the country.”
Chairman of the LDC board of directors, Martin Ginyaru, said LDC was created in 1982 to commercialise the beef industry. However, over the years, successive management and governments have failed to maintain its operations, leading to rundown ranches, losing LDC land to settlers and dwindling stock.
“When the Marape government came on board and appointed a new minister, the new minister quickly stepped in to revive the company and appointed a board, where, the board is still continuing under the new minister again,” he said.
“When we came on board, we started from ground zero.”
The corporation’s main areas of priority now are to increase the stock in the country and reclaim all of its assets.
The 360 cattle will be shipped to Central this week to tick off the final checklist of the MTDP III, before LDC moves on to achieving the goals set out in the Medium-Term Development Plan IV 2023-2027, which was launched on July 7th.
This will be the second shipment of cattle to Launakalana from Morobe. The first shipment was in December 2022, when LDC bought 187 cattle from smallholder farmers in Sialum to breed at the Launakalana ranch