Small holders dominate industry

 By ABIGAIL APINA

A study has revealed that ninety percent of the 150,000 households who engage in cocoa farming and production in the country are small holders.

Agricultural consultant John Diugu said the small holder sector in Papua New Guinea would continue to beat plantations in terms of cocoa production.

He said only10% were from the plantation sector.

Diugu said the 90% does not include sole processors, buyers and exporters, adding that statistics would be well over this figure (150,000).

Cocoa was common in the coastal regions until only recently, where it was introduced to the lower valleys of some highlands provinces. 

On average, Diugu said with five children in each household, this would amount to 1050,000 earning their livelihood from the cash crop.

An average land size planted with cocoa trees by one household is four hectares.

This, he said, was equivalent to 600,000 hectares of land with cocoa. 

The hybrid cocoa planting material developed and released by Cocoa Coconut Institute can yield an average of one tonne per hectare annually. 

Diugu said PNG could be exporting 600,000 metric tons of cocoa per year instead of an average of 50,000 metric tons.

He said sixteen bags of dry cocoa beans make one metric tonne, therefore 600,000 metric tons of dry cocoa would fill up 16 bags equivalent to 9,600,000 bags annually.

It is understood that the PNG Cocoa Industry pricing formula enables 85% of the world market price to the dry cocoa bean sellers. 

Averageprice of dry cocoa beans sold by exporters to overseas markets is K529.00/bag and they pay K450.00 per bag to the fermentry owners. 

Diugu said exporters make K79/bag adding that technically cocoa fermentry owners should earn K4.32 billion.