Veggie farmer decries lack of better transport

By BOSORINA ROBBY
A WESTERN Highlands farmer has called on the government to help vegetable growers transport their produce to markets in Port Moresby.
John Yap, a former didiman (government agricultural officer) and now a farmer with the Kurunga Farming Co, said yesterday the cost of transporting produce down the Highlands Highway to Lae port and the cost of shipping from Lae to Port Moresby were just “too much for a farmer”.
Apart from the high cost, most of the produce would be rotten by the time they reached Port Moresby.
Yap said yesterday a truckload of 58 bags of rotten cabbages were dropped off at the Bismarck Maritime Shipping office in Port Moresby to dramatise farmers’ frustration.
Yap said this was being experienced every week by farmers who shipped their produce from Mt Hagen to Lae and then to Port Moresby.
He said the only logical reason for damaged vegetables was that they were not adequately refrigerated.
Yap claimed that the growers were made to sign a waiver that the shipping company would not be held liable for any loss or damage on the goods during shipment.
“Even though all of us farmers signed this because we know the risks involved, we still cannot operate successfully if we continuously have 70% of our shipment getting damaged,” Yap said.
“The least they can do is help us by paying back something to us,” he said.
Yap said the cost of shipping a bag of any type of vegetable from the gardens to the roadside market, onto container trucks to Lae, and then to the refrigerated containers to Port Moresby would be about K90.
“When you multiply that by 50 bags of the same type of vegetable plus all the other produce, you are looking at a lot of money being spent by the small farmers.
“And then, the shipping lines would charge us K4,000 or so for a refrigerated container to keep our produce fresh during the three-day travel from Lae to Port Moresby,” he said.
“So why is it that when we come to pick up our vegetables, almost 70% of them are rotten?
“That’s what we want Bismarck to explain to us and for the government to help us with,” he said.
Yap said they wished the company would absorb part of their loss since it was at fault when it failed to keep their goods in good condition.
 “Farmers tend to get discouraged and would stop farming.
At a food security conference hosted by the National Institute of Research this month, it was revealed that the high cost and lack of transport system had played a big part in the farmers’ decision to quit farming.
It was recommended to the government that the transport system be addressed so that the country could attain food security, especially in the urban areas.