Cocoa farmer thanks agri sector for help

A COCOA farmer has thanked officers in the agriculture sector for giving technical and financial support to farmers.
Boisen Waninara, lead farmer in Kadaulung, said the cocoa support price had helped farmers.
Kadaulung is in the Inland-Baining local level government.
“East New Britain was once rated as top cocoa producing province in Papua New Guinea but, today, other provinces are going into cocoa development aggressively and have taken over from us,” said Waninara.
He said cocoa and copra were the backbone of the East New Britain people as most educated elites had their school fees paid from the sale of the two commodities.
Waninara said with the implementation of the support price programme, farmers at Kadaulung area were able to sell first 50 bags of dry cocoa beans.
“On behalf of the farmers of Kadaulung, I thank the PNG cocoa board chief executive officer Boto Gaupu and his officers for the technical support to us,” he said.