Taro promoted as export commodity

THE Government has been urged to look at the demand for taro, cost of freight, and the level of subsidies that can be provided for taro farmers to export the garden food overseas.
Muruk Tropical Produce Limited managing director Anna Wissink told International Trade and Investment Minister Richard Maru that the company had been buying taro from farmers in Nawaeb, Huon Gulf, Markham, Finschhafen and Lae districts, and Mt Hagen, for export to Australia and the United States of America (USA).
“We have been receiving requests from taro farmers across the country who want to sell their taro to us. But the high freight cost is what we are struggling with,” she said.
She said taro were piling up in the villages.
“We cannot move them to the market because of the freight cost. Our market in the USA wants us to supply eight 20-feet (container) of frozen taro a month. That is how big the market is.”
“The market is there, the demand is there, the supply is there, and the farmers are willing to participate but freight is a serious issue,” Wissink said.
“We need Government’s immediate assistance to this infant export industry by a ways of freight subsidy.”
Maru congratulated Wissink for exporting taro to USA and Australia and said he would take what she raised with the Agriculture Minister.
Maru said “our short-term goal is to provide freight subsidy for taro alone and the long-term goal is to go into large-scale commercial taro farming in Morobe and expand to other provinces as the demand grows”.
“The last thing we want is to kill the market opportunity by not being able to deliver more taro to meet the demand,” he said.