Quality training for taro farmers

By GABRIEL LAHOC
TARO has gained popularity as one of the most favoured food crop especially in urban Papua New Guinea, but there is a need to increase the quality of the crop.
Top quality taros produced on a large scale in PNG can become commercially successful by meeting the increasing local and international demands while contributing to the nation’s economy.
These were the challenges and encouragement to the 20 taro farmers in Lae Urban local level government area who were trained to assess and control the quality of taros by senior agriculture specialists from the Department of Agriculture and Livestock (DAL) last week.
The training funded by the Lae district’s joint district planning and budget priority committee for K13,000, now enabled these specialist farmers from urban villages and settlements around Lae city to go back into their communities and spread the new farming skills and influence the majority of local farmers who were still using traditional farming skills and producing low quality taros into the local markets with minimal commercial success.
The farmers were given practical farming demonstrations and awarded DAL certificates.