SP looks at cassava beer

 SP Brewery plans to produce beer from the cassava plant.

Managing director Stan Joyce announced this when he signed an understanding with the Department of Agriculture and Livestock Secretary Dr Vele Pat Ila’ava recently.

“Through the MOU (memorandum of understanding) with the Agriculture and Livestock Department, we will develop a central cassava nursery at the Erap station, in Morobe,” Joyce said.

“We’d be engaging thousands of farmers throughout PNG in small scale projects, whereby they grow cassava and sell that tublar plant to the starch factory and the brewery would buy the starch required for beer from the starch factory.”

Ila’ava said 85 per cent of the population depends directly from agriculture for food and income, so that amounts to something like 6 million.

“At the growth rate of 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent by 2050 the population will be about 22 to 23 million. Agriculture will still be very prominent and very significant in the lives of our people,” he said.