Cocoa makes way for oil palm

 A TOTAL of 100 hectares of fully rehabilitated cocoa blocks under the World Bank-funded Productive Partnership in Agriculture Project (PPAP) have been cleared to make way for oil palm production in East New Britain.

This has been estimated at a destruction cost of about K33 million, project manager Hosea Turbarat said yesterday. 

He said it was unfortunate that the first PPAP project in the province, valued at K1.2 million, appeared to be successful but was lost to oil palm development.

He said the 100 hectares had hybrid clones planted with most of the cocoa trees flowering and bearing pods when they were bulldozed.

Central Inland Baining Cocoa Rehabilitation project extension manager Sebastian Sambie said farmers were taken by surprise early this year when an oil palm project by Tzen Niugini and Guarequa Incorporated Land Group (landowner-Kulit) moved into the 100 hecatres of cocoa blocks belonging to farmers and began clearance.

He said most farmers in the area claimed the clearance of their cocoa blocks occurred without prior consultation with them and the Baining Society Cooperative board and management. Sambi said many settlers had been forcefully evicted since early this year.

He added that many families had been displaced, school children affected and the mangrove vegetation was currently under threat as well.

“It is a very sad case for most cocoa farmers in Kulit. More farmers are going to be affected as well as our resources and efforts will be wasted. 

“Knowingly the land group understood fully that there was already an existing cocoa project running in these three wards; Labam, Kulit and Radingi but they have gone ahead and destroyed the hard work put in for the PPAP programme,” Sambi said.