Revive dying industry, MP says

 THE Government has been urged to revive the dying coffee industry.

Dei MP Wesley Nukundj said the Government has been neglecting the industry for too long.

He asked the Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Tommy Tomscoll whether the Government had any plans to help coffee growers.

He said plantations in the Highlands had closed down as well as factories.

Nukundj queried the issuing of coffee exporting licences which he said was of no use to the growers because all their coffee plantations were covered in shrubs. 

Tomscoll said the slump in the coffee industry began 30 years ago.

“Many factors contributed to the decline in coffee in the country. These factors are lack of Government support over the years, the Panga Coffee Affair and of course coffee trees have are too old to produce quantity and quality coffee,” he said. Tomscoll said current coffee trees had all gone past their peak. “The real problem is we have not been replanting coffee trees. If we do not replace a dying coffee tree, what other results do we expect?”

He promised to table the Government’s policy paper on coffee during parliament’s next sitting.

He said funding from the Government would be used to start nursery programmes on replanting in the districts.