More than 59,000 farmers registered with PPAP

The National Main Stories

THE PPAP has implemented 83 partnership projects (47 coffee and 36 cocoa) involving 59,429 registered farmers. PPAP’s target is 60,000 farmers or beneficiaries.
According to the latest report, the projects are under various stages of implementations with some doing well and others “struggling”. Some partnerships are doing well while others are struggling.
The coffee partnerships by provinces and funding (K61.3 million) are as follows:

  • EASTERN Highlands has 18 partnerships, with 13,715 farmers and funding of K20.498 million;
  • JIWAKA has 11 partnerships, with 555 farmers and funding of K9.598 million;
  • CHIMBU has five partnerships, with 3,067 farmers and funding of K5.634 million;
  • WESTERN Highlands has four partnerships, with 3,361 farmers and funding of K5.559 million;
  • MADANG has three partnerships, with 1,939 framers and funding of K3.779 million;
  • MOROBE has two partnerships, with 1,875 farmers and funding of K3.773 million;
  • EAST Sepik has one partnership with 839 farmers and funding of K1.5 million;
  • EAST New Britain has one partnership, with 1,000 farmers and funding of K2.8 million;
  • ENGA has three partnerships, with 2,402 farmers and funding of K3.918 million; and
  • Southern Highlands has three partnerships, with 2,152 farmers and funding of K 4.229 million.

The coffee feeder/ring roads funding by provinces are as follows:

  • JIWAKA has five roads (23.13km) with funding of K11.9 million;
  • EASTERN Highlands has two roads (17.9km) with funding of K6.2 million; and
  • WESTERN Highlands has two roads (9.2km) with funding of K4 million.

“These rehabilitated 50.23km of feeder roads are benefitting more than 500,000 people. The return on investment on K22.1 million will have a multiplier impact of more than 100 times at the end of the PPAP,” the report said.
The following activities have been implemented up to March 2019:

  • 263 nurseries established from a target of 282;
  • 70%/53% of the nine different tools have been purchased/distributed to PPAP farmers;
  • 1,575 out of 3,375 coffee agronomy and livelihood training programmes or activities have been conducted to both PPAP and non-PPAP farmers; total participants 25,136 women and 83,221 men; and
  • 381 beehives (three-storey) have been introduced to PPAP farmers as part of diversification programme strategy.

From the above coffee partnership project activities, the following results have been achieved as of December 2018:

  • A TOTAL of 5,224ha of coffee blocks or about 14 million coffee trees have been rehabilitated (pruning, recycle and/or maintenance), weed control, shade management, drainage, etc);
  • A TOTAL of 20,070 farmers (57%) from the total of 35,367 farmers received training in pruning (recycle and maintenance);
  • A TOTAL of 1,633ha of coffee blocks have been recycled pruned which is equivalent to 4.3 million coffee trees;
  • A TOTAL of 3,611ha of coffee blocks have been maintained and pruned, which is equivalent to 9.6 million coffee trees;
  • ASSUMING all the registered farmers under PPAP have rehabilitated their coffee blocks, a total of 16,007ha or 42,691,458 coffee trees would have been rehabilitated at the end of the project;
  • YIELDS per ha have doubled and the lead partners have recorded a total sale of 11.5 million kg (11.5 tonnes) or 192,313 bags of green bean from their registered farmers;
  • THE average green bean price per kg was K7.50 as of December 2018, so cumulatively the PPAP farmers would have received about K86 million; and
  • COFFEE production has been fluctuating between 858,000 bags to 1.4 million bags between 2011 and 2016.