| Business |
Good news from Gazelle
WE welcome yesterday’s release of
excellent news for Papua New Guinea.
The cocoa pod borer emergency response unit in East New Britain
announced the lifting of the quarantine ban imposed to fight borer
disease in the vital agricultural crop.
This marks an outstanding achievement for the committed people who
have formed the team that has apparently brought the fight against
the disease to this point.
Response unit co-ordinator Henry Turbarat made the announcement on
Tuesday.
When the borer was identified only a few months ago, many of those
involved in the agricultural sector, particularly cocoa growers
and marketers, held their breath.
Cocoa, like any agricultural cash crop, is open to disease and
opportunistic infections. Those infections can spread like
wildfire and reduce the financial mainstay of an area to dust in a
short space of time.
We need only look at the history of English potato growing in the
Highlands to underline that fact. Once a booming village-oriented
industry, the potato is still struggling to regain its once
widespread acceptance in the region.
The Gazelle peninsula of East New Britain has long been
internationally recognised as a provider of top quality cocoa.
That reputation has been maintained in recent decades with the
planting of high yield hybrid cocoa that is immune to many
diseases, produces mature cocoa quicker, and has become widespread
in the Gazelle.
Cocoa has enjoyed prices ranging from the reasonable to the very
good for many years, and it is no exaggeration to say that the
crop in tandem with copra and other agricultural products, has
long been the backbone of the islands region.
New Ireland, Bougainville, West New Britain and far-flung Manus
also had every reason to fear the cocoa borer infestation.
All of the island region provinces harvest substantial cocoa
crops; before the civil war on Bougainville, that province was the
major PNG producer of cocoa, and production at many of the huge
plantations that once grew and marketed the product still remains
to be revived.
With the lifting of the ban comes the removal of the quarantine
stations in the eradication area.
But Mr Turbarat also announced the retention of those quarantine
checkpoints established at Tokua airport and at beachfronts and
wharves in the Kokopo and Rabaul areas.
They are to be taken over to monitor the invasion and spread of
Newcastle disease among chickens in the province. That’s the kind
of co-operation that automatically used to take place within
provinces and it is refreshing to see that it is once again
happening.
It recalls the levels of co-operation common in provinces 25 years
ago, where patrols would take place to specific destinations at
least twice a year.
These patrols were normally supervised by district administration,
and each of the provincial departments would have a representative
on the patrol.
If the province was maritime, then a government workboat would
take the patrol to its destination; for example, such patrols were
common in New Ireland, where the patrol would leave Kavieng and
journey to say, New Hanover.
The various department representatives would then pursue their
department’s concerns in the area. On return, mini reports would
be submitted to the provincial government administration outlining
matters that needed action.
Costs were slashed in this way, with officers travelling together;
the patrol members listened as much as they talked, and the
concerns of the people were rapidly channelled back to provincial
HQ for action.
The sensible flow-on of ENB facilities in the fight against
agricultural and livestock pests could be expanded into a
contemporary version of the co-operative provincial methods
formerly used.
The ENB response, the use of the bank of expertise within the
Department of Agriculture and Livestock, the speed of the
operation and the support of DAL Minister Sasa Zibe all bode well
for the agricultural sector.
The apparently successful battle against the cocoa pod borer
infestation shows the achievable side of the Prime Minister’s
Green Revolution announced at the beginning of his current term of
office.
We trust that the new government to be elected in a few months
will see the continuing value of implementing that initiative, and
of stepping up levels of internal provincial co-operation to
achieve best-practice results.
 
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