Work starts on road to ease travel for oil palm farmers

WORK on a road to help smallholder farmers outside of Alotau, Milne Bay, have better access to mills, has started, an official says.
Oil Palm Industry Corporation (Opic) general secretary Kepson Pupita said Opic funded the K450,000 access road under its rehabilitation programme to improve conditions for local farmers.
Pupita said Oipc was constructing smallholder access roads in the Alotau project.
“One road is a new cut and the other is an old road or existing road rehabilitation and maintenance.”
Pupita said these developments were something that had been missing for a long time.
There are five Opic projects around the country – Alotau, Popondetta, Hoskins, Bialla and Kavieng.
Pupita said 1,522 hectares of oil palm was planted in the Alotau project and it was the smallest in the of the five projects.
“In Milne Bay, we have two major divisions; Gurney, with almost 800 hectares of planted palm oil; and, Sagarai area around about 700 hectares,” he said.
“There are 843 smallholder farmers in the Alotau project that covers 1,522 hectares of planted oil palm.”
Pupita said there had been funding from the Government through budgetary appropriations since 2018 for road maintenance and rehabilitation to help smallholders get their crop delivered to the mills.
A total of six roads since then, he said. Pupita added that the money came directly through the public investment programme (PIP) funding under the country’s economic recovery programme.