Minister urges betel nut traders to try rice, cocoa

AGRICULTURE and Livestock Minister John Simon is encouraging suppliers of Port Moresby’s betel nut market to venture into large commercial scale rice and cocoa production.
Simon highlighted this during a ground breaking ceremony at Inawi village in Kairuku, Central, to launch the Oio Anifagi Resource Development last Saturday.
The landowner company is organising villagers in Mekeo to venture into cocoa and rice farming.
“You have huge land to fully utilise to plant other cash corps,” Simon said.
“Because if a disease hits the betel nuts and destroys them, you will have no other source of income.
“You have no other cash crops like coffee, cocoa, coffee vanilla and even rice.
Oio Anifagi Resource Development secretary Gabriel Lala said they had formed the landowner company to go into large scale rice production.
“We take betel nuts to Port Moresby to sell and get harassed.
“So we end up selling a 40kg bag of betel nut for only K50.
“But people buy it from us and make about K400 from our labour.
“So we formed this company and it’s already registered with Investment Promotion Authority (IPA).”
Meanwhile, the Minister said to provide K100,000 worth of hybrid cocoa seedlings to start a cocoa nursery at Bereina station which would then be distributed to villagers
“I will supply polybags and send cocoa extension officers to provide technical advice for the villagers to get into cocoa farming. You really have to get serious into agriculture.”