Europeans want our coffee, growers told

European countries are interested in coffee from Morobe but it is not easy to meet that demand because the growers are doing private sales to street buyers, said a senior official.
“In my last trip in October to some countries in Europe, they have expressed interests in our coffee,” said Neknasi Coffee Cooperative Society chairman Moung Bungun.
“People are working in isolation and are selling their beans to street buyers which are not helping to promote local coffee overseas.
“Most of those buyers are from other provinces and are using our products to boost their markets overseas and this has to stop.”
Last week, the society went around four villages in the Wain- Erap local level government, Nawaeb, encouraging farmers to focus on quality to meet overseas demands.
The Nawaeb district authority and the provincial government should be involved in the promotion of coffee quality and sales, said Bungun.
He said he is willing to run his awareness campaign in Nawaeb’s other local level governments and the other seven districts in Morobe.
“If we can establish markets with the European buyers, there are possibilities for them to provide training for our farmers,” he said.
Bungun said there are two types of markets in Europe –conventional and speciality.
Belgium, he said, have asked for two containers of coffee and these are likely to be sent in March, he said.