Industry failing to meet annual production target of 2mil bags

COFFEE production in Papua New Guinea has remained under the one million bags range annually, chairman of the Coffee Industry Working Group Ian Mopafi says.
Mopafi told the national coffee symposium in Port Moresby yesterday that the Coffee Industry Corporation had set a target some decades ago to increase its volume to two million bags annually, but had not achieved that goal.
“Coffee production has mostly remain under the one million bags range, we have never done two million. We could do two million and more, but we have never done that,” he said
“CIC set a two million bag target that has never been achieved.
“I think we all need to work together as a group to get this up and going.”
Mopafi challenged CIC to provide incentives to develop the coffee industry.
“Identify and support champions, real men and women preferably existing real land farmers and not paper farmers in retiring public or private service people.”
He said this applied to other industries including the agriculture sector.
“We need to identify changers, these are learned people who have moved on in life, post-independence, people who have money, communication skills, contacts,” he said.
“We need to identify these people and promote them as champions, whether it is in cocoa, coffee, vegetables.
“These are the people who go and live in the villages, and people in the village are looking for leaders homegrown.”