Market needs consistent supply

 Papua New Guinea’s fresh produce markets, which includes resource project areas, catering, hotel industries, etc, desires an avenue that can provide fresh produce consistently, according to Innovative Agro Industry.

PNG country manager Eran Gal-Or said the 9-Mile vegetable farm outside Port Moresby was intended to create demand for locally produced vegetables – and not to take customers away from local producers.

He said the farm was focused on five main fresh produce  tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicum, watermelons, and lettuces.

“There is a good market here in Port Moresby for quality vegetables that is fully supplied before we arrived – but by imports.

“The idea here is to minimise the import and to bring down the prices of produce sold at our supermarkets.

“To make sure that there is a consistent supply of vegetables into the markets … one of the problems is consistency.

“The concept from the beginning was to try and make sure we design the crops so that they meet demands and at the same time, not to hurt local farmers,” Gal-Or said. 

He said IAI acknowledged that there were farmers around Port Moresby, with a lot of them who grew vegetables in small plots – but most from the Highlands. 

“Some of them (vegetables) take time to arrive at the markets and that is when the customer tends to import from overseas.

“Customers demand fresh vegetables – so they have to arrive here fresh. And if they come in containers, it takes them time or quite a while to get here, and they are not fresh anymore and they are competing with imports in terms of quality.”