Group makes first sale

By ZACHERY PER
THE Henganofi district rice growers cooperative is the first in Eastern Highlands to sell 148 bags of dry-land rice to the Eastern Highlands Rice Cooperative on Thursday.
Governor Peter Numu who established the district and provincial rice cooperatives last year, was present to receive the first bags of rice.
Numu praised the rice farmers from Finintugu Upland Rice Project in Henganofi who had converted a tribal battle field to cultivate rice.
He said each rice cooperative would receive K50,000 from the provincial services improvement programme (PSIP) to boost their rice production this year.
Numu said the financial assistance to Finintugu rice growers was not a waste and had yielded results in 148 bags weighing 10.5 tonnes to kick start rice production under the new Eastern Highlands Rice Cooperative company.
Numu said the provincial cooperative allowed the six districts in the province to own a 10 per cent share while the provincial government owned 40 per cent through its business arm Nokondi Investment.
Numu said each district would have their own district rice farmer’s cooperative but would be affiliated to the provincial cooperative.
The chairman of each district cooperatives would be a director in the provincial cooperative company.
“Any proceed from the business would be shared equally among the districts and the province and individual farmers will benefit greatly from it,” he said.
“The cooperative will be managed by Chinese and Eastern Highlands rice experts from the Juncao Technology,” he said.
Numu gave K20,000 as an initial seed capital for the Finintugu project.