FAO rolling out agriculture value-chain in Mamose

THE Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) will roll out an agriculture value-chain development programme in PNG to support rural entrepreneurship, investment and trade.
FAO country representative Ken Shimizu said during the PNG consultation workshop yesterday in Port Moresby that the programme was funded by the European Union (EU).
It will be implemented in East Sepik and the Mamose.
It will focus on strengthening the vanilla, cocoa and fisheries industries value chain.
“It is the largest EU-funded programme in the Pacific (and) EU-funded FAO project in PNG,” Shimizu said. “The scale of the project is unique because the concept is to bring together the soft components with the hard components.
“It means providing the traditional extension services.
“We are also going to provide support to rehabilitate infrastructure like road rehabilitation.
“We will also support ICT (information communication technology), increased access to capital and financing, business entrepreneurship development coupled with technical services.
“The idea is to address all the obstacles that impact farmers in PNG and give them an all-in-one approach to transform them from growers into agri-business entrepreneurs.”