Coffee Industry News
Komp Coffee Plantation in Mendi Rejuvenated
Despite the oil and gas boom in the Southern Highlands Province, the people of Lai Valley in the Mendi District of the province are turning to coffee as a sustainable income generation activity.
The 50 hectare Komp Coffee plantation in the fertile Lai valley of Mendi district is being rejuvenated with much needed rehabilitation by the Lai valley landowners comprising of old and young men and women.
The land owners did not waste time but dashed into the plantation with
their bush knives and axes and begun the rehabilitation project after practical demonstration and training on the coffee rehabilitation packages were shown to them by CIC officers.
Chief Executive Officer of the Coffee Industry Corporation Ltd, Mr. Navi Anis, expressed great satisfaction in the swift manner in which the landowners embraced and demonstrated their newly acquired coffee skills.
“It is one of CIC’s current strategies to increase coffee production in PNG and CIC aims to work closely with farmer groups like the Lai Valley farmers who are willing to contribute and to help themselves”, said Mr. Anis.
He said CIC provides a number of services and training to willing farmer groups, in progressive stages, starting with Participatory Rural Appraisal Programs (PRAP), coffee training, book keeping, mobilization of farmer group, as organized production and marketing units.
The Komp, plantation was managed by the former Southern Highlands Development Authority and was abandoned for some twenty (20) years due to high cost of farm input supplies, labour, poor management and criminal activities along the highway.
The Rehabilitation activity came about as a result of the awareness carried out by CIC, the local NBC radio and the Southern Highlands Smallholder Coffee Growers Association.
A group leader said in pidgin “oil na gas em blong ol lain long Hela region. Mipela em nogat narapela wei, so mipela mas go long graun na stap wantaim kofi”. (Oil and gas is for the Hela people, we must work on the land and remain with coffee)
The plantation is now fully rehabilitated, including plantation roads. Infilling and expansion of young coffee trees is also progressing.
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Updated:
September 5, 2011
