Corporation intervenes to fix access roads in Alotau

THE Oil Palm Industry Corporation (Opic) has rehabilitated small holder roads in Alotau, Milne Bay, under its intervention programme.
Opic acting general-secretary Kepson Pupita said many small holder farmers had abandoned their blocks because of a lack of access to proper roads.
Road 1 consists of 69 blocks and Road 2 is 58 blocks.
Each roads costs K495,000 and K125,000 on rehabilitation of blocks.
Pupita said Opic was using its share of the K50 million price support intervention programme for agriculture sector to rehabilitate oil palm blocks.
“We have taken our share of that money and put it into rehabilitating oil palm blocks that were run down many years ago,” he said.
“We rehabilitated blocks along the corridor of a road that the Government has already funded through the public investment programme under the small holder maintenance and rehabilitation programme.
“The Government gave the corporation K10 million for road maintenance and rehabilitation for the small holders.
“For oil palm, I could not do price support because I would need K100 million to K200 million. That’s a lot of money but we are going to rehabilitate road.”
He said the money put into the two roads could be recovered in two years.
“In two years, we can recover K1.4 million in export earnings and K700,000 in terms of earnings through the farmer,” he said.
“I can say that in agriculture, oil palm is the way to go and our Government needs to put more money into oil palm because that is the commodity that can immediately transform lives and alleviate poverty.”