Agriculture agencies back veggie farming

Normal, Papua
Source:

The National, Monday February 15th, 2016

 AGRICULTURE agencies have pledged continued support for vegetable farmers in the Southern region, who were affected by the drought and controversies surrounding the vegetable import ban.

The National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) Southern region centre at Laloki and Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA) have assured the farmers of continued support through seedlings and farm extension service.

NARI Laloki research and development coordinator Clifton Gwabu and FPDA divisional manager for production and value chain systems Lucas Kindiwa said the dry weather affecting irrigation systems and controversies surrounding the ban on vegetable import should not stop farmers from working on their small farms.

“If farmers need seeds, they can always take a bus ride to Laloki,” Gwabu said.

“We can provide them with seedlings of taro, corn, cassava, banana and sweet potato, which are drought-tolerant crops.

“The vegetable import ban and its lifting, with the exception of bulb onion, had no effect at all on rural farmers, let alone a little segment of the market that relied on top quality grade vegetables from Australia for that matter.”

Gwabu said the ban was unrealistic and was imposed on ad-hoc basis without proper consultation with relevant agencies on how to set up a focused strategy to prepare farmers to grow the different varieties covered by the ban in order to meet PNG market demand.

“What’s important is we are here and farmers need not worry because we have a strong network with them and their respective provincial Department of Agriculture and Livestock branches.”

Gwabu, who witnessed Tony Badu, a local farmer from Gaire in Central being assisted with a tractor by Governor Kila Haoda on Tuesday, gave 10kg of open pollinated corn to the Central DAL branch.

He also gave 2kg of corn seeds to Badu and said about 20 provinces have already received their share of the seeds.

Kindiwa helped the farmer with 10,000 bulb onion seedlings, which he estimated would land Badu with a profit of K5000 after labour costs.

“We are an agency that deals with thousands of rural farmers and provide solutions to their farming needs,” Kindiwa said.