Coffee deal to benefit small scale farmers

SMALL coffee and bee farmers now have an opportunity to bank with MiBank after it signed an agreement with the biggest coffee cooperative in the Highlands.
The agreement between Apo Angra Angna Kange (AAAK) Coffee Cooperative and the bank comes under the bank’s super-agent programme.
AAAK Coffee Cooperative general manager Brian Kuglame and manager of the MiBank programme Steven Ereman signed the agreement at AAAK Cooperative’s cluster group nine in Keiya village in Ungai-Bena, Eastern Highlands, on Friday.
Kuglame welcomed MiBank to team up with AAAK Cooperative and its farmers as it would create an opportunity for farmers to have access to banking services.
He said today farmers could not access commercial banks as there were stringent terms and conditions which did not suit them.
With MiBank, he said, the farmers could find it easy to get along and open accounts not for themselves but for their children and their respective cluster agents.
“AAAK Cooperative is aiming to give life back in the community through by work hard tilling the soil.
“By then each farmer should have 2,000 coffee trees and 10 bee hives,” he said.
Kuglame told farmers in Keiya that AAAK Cooperative had established a coffee market chain all the way to coffee roasters.
Their coffee will maintain its quality as it goes through the chain to the United States.
“Your coffee will first go to Volcafe PNG Coffee Exports, crop-to-cup importers and Crimson and True Coffee Roaster in the US, consumers will know that they are drinking coffee from Keiya or where the cluster is under AAAK Cooperative,” he said.
Ereman said his officers would work with AAAK farmers for eight months to strengthen their partnership.