Minister wants co-op funding

By LEMACH LAVARI
The Government needs to support co-operatives in order to grow the agricultural sector, says Commerce and Industry Minister Wera Mori, pictured.
He told The National that there was no funding for co-operatives in the 2018 Budget.
Mori said that it was a mistake to not include funding for co-operatives and hoped the Government could include funding in the 2019 Budget.
“This is very sad because we talk about growing the economy, but we have not demonstrated by funding growth,” he said.
“Cooperatives are the only way forward, especially to revitalise and revive all our rundown plantations in the country”
Mori said this last week in a meeting with Grow Asia, a multi-stakeholder partnership.
Grow Asia helps farmers connect with international private sector investors.
This includes access to knowledge, technology, finance and markets to increase production and profit.
They have reached 600, 000 farmers through country partnerships (CP) in five Asian countries.
Papua New Guinea is set to be the first Pacific country to work with Grow Asia. Mori said Grow Asia was an opportunity for the Government to reach out to rural communities where the population base was.
He said a great model to revive plantations was to include landowner families as cooperative units.
Mori said they would then be allocated land to look after.
These families would then sell to a central processing centre.
The centre would help them prepare the crop for export.
Mori said the money earned from exports would then be paid down to the family units.
He said the model was similar to that used by palm oil businesses in the country and was effective.