Agriculture

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.

Caspar Nol is in charge of a coffee association in Simbai. He raised this concern recently, adding that farmers in the villagers have a lot of coffee to sell, but cannot bring it to Simbai Station and on to Mt Hagen. 

Mr Nol said he and others look after the coffee warehouse at Simbai. They have bought a tractor and need help in bringing the machinery to Simbai to resolve the transportation issue between local villages and the coffee warehouse.

These included 3000 young girls and women from 40 remote villages as well as educational institutions in the Sepik Region, over the last four months, to mainstream gender and youth inclusion into the agri-food value chain.

In its ongoing mission to mainstream gender concerns and youth inclusion into the agri-food value chain, the EU Funded UN Joint STREIT PNG Programme, in partnership with stakeholders, has conducted 12 sensitisation sessions and training workshops.

He said in the last term of Parliament, though there were two governments, agriculture was not a priority and it has been the same with successive governments past and present.

Aganisafa said there have been lost opportunities and misplacement of resources due to bureaucratic red tape in the past, yet the agriculture sector continues to sustain the bulk of our 10 million plus people, who live off the land. 

Team Esa’ala Culture Coordinator Kenphyl Duigu said Sport, Religion and Culture was captured in the program in the current event but he suggested that for future events, agriculture and choir must be added.

“Islanders are known as choir singers and for Esa’ala, we sing choir better in Milne Bay Province.

“Through this National Youth Development Authority program, we have seen that we achieved most of our goals in the youth, law and order, agriculture.

On Monday 14 February 2022, the Country Consultative Meeting for the FAO 36th Session of the Asia Pacific Regional Conference (APRC) was held in Port Moresby. The half-day high-level consultation meeting with relevant Government authorities is a lead up to the main event, which is the FAO 36th Session of the Asia Pacific Regional Conference.

The FAO conference is scheduled to be held from 8th - 11th of March 2022, in Dhaka, Bangladesh

He said this when opening the landmark icon of the people of West New Britain, last week, which was funded by money from the province’s lucrative oil palm industry.

The Department of Justice and Attorney-General and all its agencies will be taking up space in all 12 floors.

Prime Minister Marape said the West New Britain story should be an inspiration for every individual and provincial government in the country, and was in line with Pangu Pati’s vision of economic independence for PNG.

The mills will assist them to efficiently process their coffee.

Agriculture and Livestock Minister John Simon officiated at this launching at the Nondugl

Council Chamber grounds recently.

The groups include Waka, Numkussy, Opka, Kumbal Kopong and Konum coffee cooperatives.

Minister Simon told the gathering at Nondugl that they did not need an educated person to go and tell them to attend to their coffee gardens, but that the knowledge and skills on how to till the land was already with them.

This approach is being led by Governor Robert Agarobe to mobilise their land from a subsistence lifestyle into a more commercialised one.

“At the moment, we are all subsistence farmers, we grow a bit of this and a bit of that. To secure the market and push production, it becomes a problem, so by going down that path by one crop electorate and one farmer concept, we can then commercialise,” said Governor Agarobe.

One of these, inaugurated by the EU in late August 2019, is a PGK340m ($99.6m) pilot program designed to benefit smallholder farms.

This deal comes after the launch of the EU’s Enterprise Development Fund earlier in 2019, which will provide funding for small-scale vanilla and cocoa farmers in the provinces of East Sepik and Sandaun in the north-west.