AGRICULTURE

Monpi rolls out control measures

By CORA MOABI
THERE are no quick solutions to the coffee berry borer (CBB) threat now restricted in parts of Eastern Highlands and Jiwaka.
Prevention and control efforts by the Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC) have been ongoing since 2017. Industry stakeholders have been urged since the incursion in 2017 to join hands with CIC and holistically address the deadly pest which has infested many gardens.
This is an alarming news and of great concern for the industry in Papua New Guinea, thus coffee stakeholders such as the Monpi Coffee sustainable management service (SMS) programme has stepped up and is commended for taking ownership of one of the integrated pest management (IPM) practices and rolling it out with its supply chain farmers in Western Highlands and Jiwaka provinces.
Monpi SMS Project Coordinator Maureen Kahento, highlighted that CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development), is the academic research partner which works with Monpi to address issues affecting agricultural activities. “For our case ‘The CBB affecting Coffee ‘and provide solutions to address this issue. The triple IPM method that we are currently rolling out is one of their solutions and the operation is funded by Jacob Douwe Egberts- JDE : Common Grounds project.”
On a recent visit to its project sites in Kindeng and Ulya, it was obvious that farmers were very concerned about the pest presence in their coffee gardens and showed willingness to learn new techniques and receive advice from both the CIC and Monpi SMS team on how best they could minimize the spread of the pest. Farmers showed great concern as they were seeing a very big drop in their income even though the prices have picked up.
Solo Apa is a public relations officer for Monpi SMS based in Kindeng and expressed concerns for people in the area. He spoke of how challenging his job was to set up ethanol-methanol traps in cofee gardens and to check on them after two weeks, if any trapped CBB were found in it and to count every single one of them and record the data for Monpi. He said his data gives Monpi a fair idea of the rate of infestation in the different communities that coffee is sourced from.
“We have been working hard since we discovered that the pest was already in our gardens. This pest is like bushfire and it will really have a big impact on us. The pest is already here so we must work together. My job is to collect data from the set traps after two weeks and I am already seeing the increase in the CBB found in these traps. Farmers here have recognised this,” he said.
The CIC team travelled together with the Monpi SMS team from Goroka to their project sites during this visit.
CIC Entomologist Jonah Aranka said he was pleased with the approach Monpi SMS was taking to help its supply chain farmers. “If one of you is working hard and the other is not doing the same, this will aid the pest to multiply and spread quickly,” Aranka said.
He urged the farmers to assist Monpi-SMS with its CBB roll-out program and to cooperate with other development partners who would come in with Monpi in future visits to help manage the pest.
He explained that the entire life cycle of the pest occurs in the cherry thus causing damage from within the cherry itself. “You have seen the drop in kilograms already and you have blamed Monpi-SMS for tightening their scales. Now you realise that it is CBB. If we remove a CBB beetle from one of the Ethanol-Methanol traps then we are destroying 100 eggs to hatch and multiply. We are not able to completely remove this pest but we have to learn to manage it. From my observation on the coffee trees here, it is showing that on one branch that has 10 coffee cherries, 9 were infested and one bean was good indicating a 90 percent loss on the coffee tree. Let us all cooperate and work together with organisations like Monpi-SMS and others to reduce CBB population in your coffee gardens.”
Farmer Raphael Mark said during the first round of awareness last year, they did not take this seriously and their children removed the traps from the coffee trees. “Today, we have realized what this deadly pest is doing and we are working closely with the Monpi SMS team. Monpi SMS has come to our community and we want other partners to assist as well as this is out of what we can do. If we do not do anything to address this, it will spread like bushfire and we cannot manage this as our livelihood depends on coffee. Monpi SMS has come to help us but we have seen that this is a very exhausting exercise that must continue into the future to properly manage the pest.”
Female farmer Serah Kou has three blocks of coffee. “I had no idea that CBB was the reason for the drop in the income I was getting. Usually, a drum of coffee gives us 15 kilograms. When I recently brought a drum to sell at the factory, I only got 10 kilograms. All this time we did not think that CBB was already present in our coffee beans until the awareness by Monpi SMS which made us realize what we were dealing with. I am kindly urging the government to hear our concern and cry and to come down to the community level to assist us to better address CBB.”
According to CIC’s programme manager for Research and Innovation Dr Mark Kenny, CBB’s presence was detected in 2017 and the immediate response at that time was primarily to contain the spread of CBB from its point of detection and attempt eradication.
“Unfortunately, the objective to eradicate the pest did not work out as expected so we changed the objective from eradication to minimising the impact of CBB on coffee production and coffee quality (i.e. to live with the pest). Under the emergency response phase, the CIC took ownership of all activities for containment and eradication using the limited funds provided by the government.”
With the revised approach to live with the pest, the emphasis is now on empowering (training) farmers to take ownership of CBB control.
During the visit, Monpi SMS had already covered more than 900 hectares of their supply chain farmers’ gardens, surpassing the project’s target. Monpi-SMS Coordinator Maureen Kahento said so far they have tried their best to work with limited resources to carry out awareness and at the same time teach the locals how to set up the Brocap traps and manage their gardens. She said 1, 000 boxes of Brocap traps were purchased in Indonesia in early 2019 with two hundred litres of Ethanol and 200 litres of Methanol which was mixed together and repacked into 20ml diffuser bottles to be used as attractants to lure CBB into the traps and kill them, thus reducing the population. After the Brocap traps have been set up and data is collected on the number of CBB present in the traps, it gives an indication of the infestation level in the different coffee growing communities. “In our next approach, we will be introducing Beauveria Bassiana which is a fungus and is the natural control agent which feeds on the CBB pest. Technical assistance and materials on how to manage this pest is from ECOM’s Partners and this huge operation to minimize the impact and spread of CBB is funded by Jacob Douwe Egberts- JDE: Common Grounds project, ” Kahento said.
“We are happy with the progressive work so far and we hope that more partners apart from CIC can come on board to help other farmers who are also affected but not in our supply chain.”
SMS manager Hosea Mailil said the SMS PNG program believes in providing interventions that goes towards supporting the coffee industry and leading the fight against the spread of CBB is only the first step.
“We can only do so much within our capacity as a producer support organisation but with a collective approach of all stakeholders in the industry, we can bring the spread below threshold levels that not only benefit farmers but also can maintain current export volumes of coffee.”

• The author is the communications officer at PNG Coffee Industry Corporation.

Advocacy group gets an office

By LULU MAGINDE
THE National Capital District Organisation for Persons with Disabilities (NCD OPD) have been waiting for the past 10 years, for recognition and an office space at city hall.
Executive manager for the NCD OPD Benson Tegia states that “This has been going on for a very long time, not only for us but across the country. As far as I know, none of our OPD’s have a space within the provincial offices, except for East Sepik.”
Responsible for being the mouthpiece of different disability organisations throughout the country, the NCD OPD has been advocating for the awareness, rights and inclusion of Persons Living with Disabilities (PLWD) at the local and government level.
With the recent launching of their Disabilities Inclusion project program in the beginning of March, the NCD OPD, in the presence of key stake holders addressed major challenges as well as the introduction of a new name.
Now referred to as the NCD DiffAbilities Advocacy Agency (NCD DAA), spokesperson Tegia states that for years, they have been overlooked when it came to disability inclusion or completely forgotten within key governmental agencies dealing with disabilities services.
“Thanks to the one year project funding support from the Pacific disability rights advocacy fund, we are finally able to focus on refocus our purpose and name,” he said.
The Department of Community Development and Religion (DfCDR) is one such government department responsible for providing a voice and catering to the needs of the country’s disabled population but have not to date, provided any tangible services or results for the disabled community.
“Our biggest problem is that we don’t have a voice here (DfCDR) and it’s not just a current issue, this has been going on for a while now,” said Tegia.
“We are working from our houses, we just communicate and once an event happens like this then we get together to coordinate things going forward,” he adds.
Even the Deputy Secretary for Corporate Services at the DfCDR Jackson Bou, highlighted the importance of advocacy agencies that carry out awareness programs for PLWD throughout the country.
“Our own Papua New Guineans have to be supportive and working for our own locally grown organisations because in the long run it is organisations like yours, a good number of them which are stationed and working right down to the community level,” he said.
“The department cannot go and deliver disability services, women leadership services or many other functional mandates that the department is tasked with, but can deliver services by supporting organisations who are based at the ground level,” he adds.

Their key stakeholders include but are not limited to; United Nations Women, Care International, board members of the provincial OPDs, World Vision, Equal Playing Field, United Nations Office of Human Rights Council, Kapi foundation and the National Orthotics and Prosthetics Services.
Tegia observes that in order for the agency to make more of an impact, they must be seen from a different angle in engaging seriously to empower the abilities of those around them, building their confidence going forward.
“We have seen secretaries come and go as well as some well-known staff within the department who we think will know and advocate for our situation going forward but sadly that is never the case,” he noted.
Adding that there is no coordination between the NCDDAA and the DfCDR or partner agencies referring to the Disability Policy that has not gained any traction since its inception in 2015.
“We had the chance to help contribute to and it took us seven or eight years for us to develop it through the support of some common grants headed by the national assembly of disabled persons,” he said.
Tegia explains how members of the agency went out to the provinces, conducted consultations with PLWD to add their input into the policy, but when they put the document together they learned that it was not possible to implement it.
“We’re asking for a review of the policy and we have had a couple of meetings but they’re telling us we don’t have money,” he said.
“I also did a plan for how we were going to tackle Coronavirus (Covid-19), presented it to the department and left it there letting them know that someone from within the department must also be working with the team dealing with the response, but I did not hear back at all,” he adds.
Although the NCDDAA has not contributed to how the strategy incorporates PLWD, he notes that the community is luckily very resilient, as there weren’t that many deaths or hospitalisations.
Several key spokespeople within the NCDDAA believe that the Government must be held responsible for not funding the Disability sector for not being able to deliver or provide adequate disability services for the past two or three decades.
“We as the lead NCD umbrella organisation, decided to find ways around the current system that would hold us back, continuing to present a united front and effort so that our voices are heard and we are seen,” said Tegia.
Going forward, the agency would like to engage with more development partners so as to secure more project funding for instance from the US based Disability Rights Advocacy Fund.
They shall be using the funding to ensure monitoring, interpretation and harmonising coalition grants under the United Nations Convention on the Rights for Persons with Disabilities is made a priority.