Lihir cocoa production slowly picking up

By MAJELEEN YANEI
COCOA production in New Ireland’s Lihir is slowly picking up with the volume of cocoa beans bought monthly rising, says a local government official.
Nimamar local level government general manager Vincent Kisso said the majority of cocoa growers abandoned their cacao trees after the impact of the pod borer.
“Farmers in Kosmayun, Sale, Lienbel, Lataul and Kori have a few hectares remaining but production dropped as cacao trees were not maintained.
Kisso said the villages had only two fermentaries, the Nimamar LLG buy their wet beans and fire-dry them in the fermentaries when they could not do so because of wet weather.
“We have been paying K3 a kilogramme since January and are seeing that production is increasing slowly at five bags a month but we aim to be doing 10 bags by the end of this month.
“The beans are sold to Agmark in Kokopo for K1,080 a bag.
“We are trying to do fortnightly buying but cannot due to low production, this is a start to engage farmers and grow their interest.”
Kisso said that in 2019, University of Natural Resources and Environment (UNRE) carried out integrated agricultural training in the LLG which aimed to get Lihirians to be involved in growing cocoa.
“That was not effective and in 2022 we reviewed the training and realised that there was no market access for them so we decided to buy the wet beans and develop interest that way.”
Kisso added that the LLG was in talks with distributors in Kokopo to develop sustainable cocoa farming projects for locals.
“The price will drop anytime and as a Lihirian company, we appeal to the provincial government to create a stabilisation fund to back the price and support farmers.
“The people have funding from the mine and the government must look into and use that money to create stability funds to support agriculture in Lihir. Apart from the mine, agriculture has a promising future for the people,” Kisso said.
“We are working with UNRE to establish more fermentaries but it depends on production, as well as initiatives to keep farmers interested in cocoa.”
Kisso said the PNG Cocoa Board’s freight subsidies had seen the cost remain stable at K35 per bag for shipment to Kokopo.