Three-week travel to sell rubber

RUBBER farmers in the Karawari local level government in Angoram, East Sepik, travelled down the Sepik river for three weeks to reach Angoram to sell 468 bags of cup lump.
They hope to sell the produce at a higher price under the Government’s price support programme.
They reached Kambaramba village near Angoram last Monday when they were met by a monitoring and evaluation technical team comprising officers from the Department of National Planning and Monitoring and Department of Agriculture and Livestock.
The farmers brought cup lumps from the villages of Imanmeri and Amanwari. Karawari LLG president Emil Kongien said: “This is not all. There are still tons of rubber in Karawari that need to be transported to the markets.
“What you’ve seen at Gavien is not all the rubber in Angoram district.
“We were one of the first to grow rubber even before the Gavien rubber scheme was established in the early 1960s.”
Transportation and markets remain the farmers’ biggest challenges.
Kongien urged the Government to buy them a barge, provide equipment, and maintain a fair price.