Stop importing veggies, govt told

By LORRAINE JIMAL
A VEGETABLE farmer who supplies the City Pharmacy group retail shops in Port Moresby is calling on the Government to stop the importing of vegetables and promote local food farms.
Lucy Goya, from Watabung in Eastern Highlands, supplies City Pharmacy Limited’s Stop & Shop supermarkets with potatoes and kaukau.
She said farmers could produce vegetables for the local market.
“We produce and sell fresh broccolis and strawberries for K5 or K2,” Goya said.

“However, those imported ones in the shops are selling for K28 or K30 but people still buy them. It’s sad to see this happening.”
Goya is a participant in the Stop & Shop’s Root Crop Festival.
The initiative will see supermarkets focus on local root vegetables throughout this month.

She said most of the farmers depended on selling vegetables but there were times they did not sell everything they produced.
“Instead of importing from other countries, place orders from the farmers and they will supply the shops in the country,” she said.
Goya said PNG had fertile land to produce the best vegetables and if there were markets for them, it would encourage more people to engage in agriculture.

Goya, 27, is the second eldest in a family of five.
She left work to help her parents in the farm so they can sell vegetables in Port Moresby.
Goya and her sister do the marketing while their parents do the planting, harvesting and transporting to Lae for shipment to Port Moresby.
She sends back money to her parents to send another lot of vegetables.
Goya said the challenges were the market availability for their produce and transport.
When the transportation of the farm produce is delayed, they rot quickly which affects the quality of the vegetables.