Solar dryers set for Pomio cocoa farmers

COCOA farmers in the Central Inland Pomio and West Pomio local level governments (LLGs), East New Britain, are set to have a solar combination dryer to ferment their cocoa beans.
This was revealed by the Pomio administrator Peter Peniat in a brief interview with The National last week in Kokopo.
Peniat said Pomio administration staff had installed four cocoa solar combination dryers in the two LLGs – two in Central Inland Pomio and two in West Pomio.
He added that, Pomio Development Authority (DDA) Board had recently approved the K44,000 for the four dryers – K11,000 per dryer.
The dryers were already installed at these four locations in these two LLGs respectively.
Peniat said seven other cocoa solar combination dryers installed in Melkoi LLG’s seven wards, were funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) under the partnership programme with the Pomio development authority board.
“The K11,000 funding per dryer includes everything – we buy all the hardware materials while the timber component will be provided by the farmers themselves.
“The funding is from the partnership between the Pomio DDA and UNDP while the Cocoa Board of PNG is engaged to certify the solar dyers and give licences to the farmers.”
Peniat said agriculture was one of the main priorities for the Pomio DDA board and they would do their best to support the agriculture activities whether it was in cocoa, copra, vanilla, coffee or fresh produce.