State attempts to revive ‘old’ industry

 THE national government has funded two major projects this year in an attempt to revive the ailing coconut industry, an official says. 

PNG Cocoa Coconut Institute Ltd director productivity improvement progamme Dr Eremas Tade said coconut census and appraisal and downstream processing were the two projects funded by government. 

He said for a long time, the coconut industry did not receive much funding from the government.

“Most of our coconut trees are very senile and the project with the support of PNGCCIL and Kokonas Indastri Korporesen (KIK) involves going into selected districts to conduct census and appraisal.

“Most trees were planted by our grandfathers and need to be rehabilitated.

“In doing that we are reverting to local tolls, rather than using hybrid trees that cannot withstand the beetle pest and we are designing a criteria on how to select local tolls.”

He said the project started this year in New Ireland and would move on to selected districts.

Tade said the second project was downstream processing and involved supporting local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through technical support from PNGCCIL and KIK.

He commended the Rabaul district for taking the initiative to begin conducting a survey and rehabilitation on its coconut trees.