Morobe cocoa cooperative gets 50,000 seedlings

By EREBIRI ZURENUOC
THE farmers of a cooperative in Morobe are being given 50,000 cocoa seedlings with the help of the Cocoa Board.
The seedlings are have been provided by Markham Organic.
“I have about 2000 farmers and we incorporated the group in March last year,” said Labuta Cocoa Cooperative Society managing director Reuben Yapi.
“We have 70 cluster cooperatives and the main one is the Labuta Cooperative Society.
“This is the first time we have received assistance from the government through the Cocoa Board.
“We are now able to carry out extension work with all our farmers.”
Yapi said the farmers had more than 300,000 trees growing already around Labuta.
“This 50,000 seedlings will actually be an extension and it is the new hybrid seedlings,” he said.
“After we plant it, we will do budding with cloned seedlings which we also received from Cocoa Board.
“The cloned seedlings are cocoa pot borer-resistant, so we will bud it with the 50,000 after we plant them.”
He said the cooperative had a central nursery at Aluki in Bukawa, where budders will go out to help the 2000 farmers develop pest-resistant trees.
Yapi said the seedlings were being distributed.
“We have already shifted 20, 00 by road to our farmers who have access to roads,” he said.
“The other 30,000 we will be distributing by ship, because that is the only way to get to some farmers and cluster groups. We hired a barge.”