Programme helps ENB farmers sell 154 bags of dry cocoa

By ROSELYN ELLISON
THE Makurapau Cocoa Farmers Cooperative in Bitapaka, Kokopo, East New Britain, has sold 154 bags of dry cocoa beans since March and production is likely to increase in the coming months.
This was revealed by group chairman Metalom Eron yesterday.
Eron told The National in Kokopo yesterday that farmers had benefited from the cocoa price support programme introduced by the Government earlier this year.
He said the cooperative started buying wet cocoa beans from local farmers for K3/kg.
He said they started buying cocoa wet beans from the local farmers in March after the price support was launched and introduced in the province.
Eron said in March, they sold 30 bags and doubled that number to 67 bags last month.
He said the cooperative had, so far, sold 36 bags of dry beans and had more beans at the dryer.
“With the help of PNG Cocoa Board (CBPNG) we were able to sell all our dry beans to two dealers in Agmark and Outspan,” he said. Eron said with more cocoa being sourced from farmers the cooperative needed additional dryers to boost production.
The cooperative has three cocoa dryers which were built and funded by CBPNG and the Kokopo development authority board.
The three cocoa dryers used were a combination solar, standard trade development facility dryer and normal clean pipe hot air dryer. Eron said the cooperative needed three more cocoa dryers to handle the supply of cocoa beans and added that CBPNG could build one while the DDA installed the other two.