26 Jun 2012

Coffee rehabilitation programme in PNG targets farmer groups

2:09 pm on 26 June 2012

A coffee rehabilitation programme in Papua New Guinea is targetting farmer groups rather than individuals in a bid to increase coffee production.

More than 80 coffee farmer groups in the Okapa district of Eastern Highlands Province entered the village by village programme carried out by the Coffee Industry Corporation early this year.

CICs training coordinator in the Eastern Highlands, Samson Jack, says they are planning on rolling the programme out to the rest of the districts in the province following the general election.

He says by organising the farmers into groups of 40 or more, they can help more people.

"If we go by individual farmers given the resource pool in terms of staff and vehicles and that, we cannot afford to go farmer by farmer, it has to be in a group so that we have wide coverage of the farmers."

Samson Jack says they provide them with training, technical information and basic tools, then it is up to the farmers to implement the rehabilitation programme.

He says it will be five to six years before results will be seen.