Cocoa farmer expands business

By MAZIE SELMBIA
A LOCAL cocoa fermentry owner in Boana, Morobe, has limited facility capacity to take on more wet beans.
Robinson Danny, a local fermentry owner, said he needed to expand his fermentry facility to take more cocoa beans from his local catchment area.
“I need to expand and upgrade my cocoa fermentry facility in order to increase the capacity intake of wet cocoa beans sold to me,” Danny said.
He said the windfall in cocoa prices had seen more farmers producing wet beans and selling to him which was more than his fermentary could handle.
“I usually take about 40 to 50 farmers in a fortnight, but looking at my local catchment area it’s more than a 100 cocoa farmers who sell to me now,” Danny said.
Danny usually receives 60kg or 70kg of wet cocoa beans per farmer in a week especially during big harvest periods.
“The Government should have some sort of Small-Medium-Enterprises incentive funds for fermentry owners and cocoa farmers as a financial capital to assist them in expanding their facilities or build new facilities,” he said.
Danny said he planned to upgrade and expand his fermentry with money earned from the cocoa he sold at the current high prices.
“I plan to improve my fermentry facilities and upgrade it to meet the PNG Cocoa Board standards with this continuous increase in cocoa prices,” he said.
The fermentation process takes six to seven days with a 24-hour rotation of beans to reach the desired dryness for export.
The price of a bag of dry cocoa beans stands between K1,500 and K1,700.