Domestication, commercialisation of galip

 By Tio Nevenimo 

Galip as it is known in Pidgin or Canarium is currently being developed and promoted as a new cash crop industry for Papua New Guinea. This development is receiving overwhelming support from farmers, galip growing provinces, and donor agencies. 

The National Agricultural Re­search Institute (NARI) started work on the galip nut in 2007 through the ‘Galip Domestication and Commercialisation Project’ supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. This was undertaken as earlier work indicated that research and development on this indigenous nut could address food security and generate cash income for rural communities in the lowlands where it is grown.

NARI has been conducting studies in galip as the nut is of high quality with a unique taste and has the potential to become a world commodity.

So far NARI has distributed over 250,000 trees to smallholder farmers and plantation owners mainly in East New Britain over the past seven years. 

These trees have the potential to generate more than K30 million per annum in a wholesale export and K10 million for ENB households. A galip pilot processing factory which was built at Kerevat, was commissioned in September 2013.

The future development plan aims to establish a further one million trees in the province and extend planting to other provinces. 

These plantings and the processing of galip nut in the country by NARI has formed the basis for the semi-commercial galip nut industry development but for the galip nut development to become a fully commercialised industry, it has a long way to go. This requires commitment from NARI and participation and commitment from all levels of government, institutions and most of all the private sector. 

One of the galip species, scientifically known as Canarium indicum, is indigenous to PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, where it grows in the wet lowland forests. 

It is claimed to be the oldest domesticated specie in Melanesia with archaeological records in the Sepik-Ramu area dating back 11,000 years. It is called Gnali Nut in Solomon Islands and Nangai Nut in Vanuatu. 

Galip is a tasty, highly nutritious nut containing protein, vitamins, healthy oils, and anti-oxidants. The unsaturated oils such as oleic acid and linoleic acid have medicinal properties, including anti-inflammatory effects and benefits to the immune system. In parts of PNG and the Solomon Islands, the oil is traditionally used to treat osteoarthritis. The tree is an ‘A’ grade timber and is the fifth most common species in some areas of PNG. Resin from some Canarium tree species can be distilled to produce Elemi Oil, which is internationally traded for use in soaps, perfumes, cosmetics and paints. Galip is of cultural importance in many areas of the country such as Madang, Bougainville and West New Britain and a favoured food throughout the wet lowlands. 

Nut-in-Shell can be sun dried and stored for about a year in the village and so contribute to food security. It is often made into a paste and mixed with taro and banana in traditional cooking. Galip is sold in only small quantities at roadside markets because most is consumed in the villages. However, it has the potential to be developed into a major cash crop for both domestic and export markets.

Galip nut is still a traditional undomesticated crop and very little is known about it in most parts of PNG and the world. 

NARI is taking galip through a domestication and commercialisation process to improve and develop the crop in all aspects of production, postharvest and processing and commercialisation, which involves upscaling and outscaling, value adding, product development and marketing.  This is illustrated in the diagram.

The first curve represents the stage of galip collection or gathering in the wild. Here tree and nut characteristics and production systems are based on traditional knowledge where people basically gather nuts and consume at the household level. 

As galip is taken into the next curve (purple) people begin to do some selection (retain trees with good nut characters such as kernel size, taste, easy to crack, consistent high yield) on wild trees and planting is done for domestic consumption, and may be exchanging for food and other house hold items). It is here that people’s knowledge on the nut is starting to grow by observations, especially on production and quality. 

When galip is taken into the third (blue) curve area, galip is now planted by farmers or collected from wild for domestic use as well as for scale at local or roadside markets. At this stage the crop is semi commercial. Research and development take place with knowledge generated and basic selection and planting on semi commercial scale takes place. Small scale processing and marketing takes place.

As the galip is taken through the final curve (green), it is plan­ted on a large scale or as plantations with increased knowledge, improved high quality material and advanced production systems developed with state of the art equipment to processing the nut into various products. This is where policies, quality control systems and trade links are put in place with patents, trade names and trademarks. All these areas need to be identified and controlled for the products to enter into the commodity trade. NARI’s galip activities are between the pink and blue curves. While work has progressed away from the traditional knowledge base of the – hunting and gathering stage, it is still confined to working with farmer based planting with much of the nuts gathered from wild trees.