Cooperative, agriculture faculty team up to fight coffee borers

Apo Angra Angna Kange (AAAK) Coffee Cooperative and the agriculture faculty of the University of Goroka have teamed up to fight the coffee berry borer (CBB).
Three students Jessy Kamb, Bilak Pipila and Nelson Patowere have been engaged fulltime to work with AAAK farmers with infected coffee ochards.
They will remove all coffee beans on infected trees, and boil, bury or burn them. They are confident that new flowers and beans on the trees will be CBB-free.
“This is a new cultural management practice to avoid wastage of resources, environmental damage, time and money,” the student description paper says.
Head of agriculture at UOG Gordon Wallangas and lecturers Dr Stanis Malangan and Baniva Fivila visited students and farmers at Gimiufa village in Asaro, Eastern Highlands, yesterday.
General-manager of AAAK Brian Kuglame received the academics at Gimiufa.
He told them that all the farmers with infected gardens would come together on a day to be selected and have a mass cherry removal.
Kuglame thanked UOG for the innovative cultural approach to eradicate CBB.