Exports reach K500m
The National, Tuesday June 24th, 2014
By GYNNIE KERO
THE country has exported one million bags of coffee last year, generating K500 million, Coffee Industry Corporation chief executive Anton Benjamin said.
He said there was potential for the industry to triple the volume of production this year due to the impacts of climate change on global coffee producers.
Benjamin said another contributing factor was the roll out of the investment programme by CIC to assist farmers at the district level.
“At the moment price of coffee is good,” he said.
He said they believed that in the next two-three years, big coffee producing countries like Brasil and Vietnam would be affected by the effects of climate change.
“They will take years to recover so it’s potential for us (Papua NewGuinea) to produce three-four million bags and we definitely look forward to beat last year’s production,” he said.
Responding to the predicted El Nino in the next six months, Benjamin said it would have an impact on production in terms of flowering.
He said the previous El Nino, which occurred in the Highlands region, affected all food crops including coffee. “With that experience, we started looking at measures such as farming technique to mitigate effects of El Nino.
“It does affect coffee production and volume of production. We just have to make sure farmers are prepared to address the challenges,” Benjamin added.