Project opens market for farmers

THE Fresh Produce Development Agency’s Market for Village Farmers (MVF) project is creating an environment for subsistence farmers to move into commercial markets, acting project manager Joe Koima says.
He said the project was helping subsistence farmers in five participating provinces (Western Highlands, Jiwaka, Chimbu, Eastern Highlands and Morobe) to move into farming as a business and eventually into commercial markets of fresh produce to supply top end markets.
“We are dealing with fresh vegetable production value chain while the MVF galip nut project is being implemented in East New Britain,” Koim said.
“Galip nut farmers in East New Britain are also changing from the traditional subsistence production to commercial markets and that is our great achievement.”
He said the agency through the project engaged lead partners who were working with an estimated 25,000 farming households.
Koima said lead partners implemented programmes under the supervision of the agency through its monitoring and evaluation unit led by senior officer Richard Alepa.
“In Chimbu, we engage Simbu Farmers Marketing Ltd (SFML) and Agro-Tech as two lead partners,” he said.
He said the Chimbu government supported SFML while the Kundiawa-Gembogl development authority supported Agro-Tech.