Farmers benefiting from K200mil price subsidy

Business
John Simon

AGRICULTURE and Livestock Minister John Simon says farmers will benefit from the K200 million agriculture price support programme.
Prime Minister James Marape announced recently an additional K150 million to the K50 million allocation.
Simon said the programme would boost production.
“Starting with K50 million in late 2021, the price support programme could be one of the best initiatives in the agriculture department,” he said.
The programme is to support the prices of commodities such as cocoa, coffee, spices (vanilla), rubber, livestock, oil palm, rice, copra and farm produce.
“This programme will see farmers directly benefiting from the increased prices of agriculture commodities,” Simon said.
“It is designed to support prices at designated buying points.
“This means the programme will identify different buyers through respective commodities and allocate the appropriate money.
“The buyers or exporters will then increase prices for farmers/producers.”