Chairman wants coffee production revived in Angoram

By GYNNIE KERO
IT is time to revive coffee production and to market it in Angoram district where there is a well-established market, Angoram Smallholder Coffee Growers Association chairman Thomas Ainero says.
He said coffee farmers in the Angoram district, East Sepik, would soon benefit from coffee trees that had a higher yielding capacity and bigger seeds following the establishment of a nursery in the district.
He said he had established a coffee nursery pit in the district, which helped him supply seedlings to some farmers.
He said he secured funding assistance from AusAID to buy building materials for the pit nursery to grow the Omuru coffee variety, which could be propagated through cuttings.
He said coffee had been grown in all the five LLGs of Angoram in the past but most of the plots were now overgrown with bushes because of the lack of extension services.
Ainero said coffee production and marketing should be revived because it had a well established market and was drunk over the world.
He said he was slow in carrying out his work because the funding released by the office of the East Sepik regional member had been blocked by the district administration.
He is urging people in the district to grow coffee apart from cocoa and other cash crops because “all cash crops have their turns in going through lower prices”.