Red Cross hosts workshop on food processing

THE PNG Red Cross office in Mt Hagen has conducted a two-week training on food processing and preservation which will allow people to produce and keep for longer when encountering drought and other disasters.
The training focused on empowering people with skills and knowledge of food processing to sell or for their family.
Processing included flour, silage, dry bean storage and other goods produced from the garden.
This also allowed people an opportunity to cut costs in buying flour while they could produce it with sweet potato or other food crops.
PNG Red Cross livelihood project officer Newby Cuthbert and national disaster preparedness officer Jacinta Yani conducted the training at Kumnga village outside Mt Hagen city. Twelve people participated.
Yani said it would help people to prepare for natural disasters like drought so that they did not have to starve, adding that such training would sustain people’s livelihood.
“You can produce flour, rice, oil or even chemicals for your food crops instead of buying them at shops,” she said.
“These are the training that need to be taught to people so they can put it into good use.”
Yani said training also covered silage for people to use in feeding their pigs.
She said the training also covered taro nurseries.
“People normally thinks that flour or soap or even chemicals are manufactured only in factories but this is not true,” Yani said.