PNG coffee industry gets a kick

While coffee growing has been a way of life in Papua New Guinea (PNG) for generations, declining cash returns for the product, combined with epidemics of the dreadful plant disease, coffee rust, have seen once lucrative and abundant gardens neglected and abandoned in recent years. The perception amongst PNG youth that coffee growing is a bygone occupation and not financially viable given the work involved, has further spurred the lapsed interest in this industry.

In a bid to revive enthusiasm for the commodity, the Morobe Mining Joint Ventures (MMJV), which owns the Hidden Valley gold mine and in which Harmony is a 50% partner, recently offered a three-week coffee training programme to local communities. The programme forms part of a greater initiative formed between MMJV and relevant organisations, including the National Agricultural Research Institute of Papua New Guinea (NARI), to develop agricultural projects. The aim of the partnership with NARI is to improve the production, quality control and marketing of various local and introduced food crops, cash crops and livestock in the gardens and small holdings of Watut River villages.

The coffee training programme drew a total of 93 Biangai villagers from Winima, Kwembu, Biawen, Werewere, Elauru and Kaisenik, and included a considerable number of young participants.

Seventeen-year-old Samantha Yamu from Kaisenik was intent on learning how to rehabilitate her mother's coffee garden, while Sindrol Nalu, a young man from the same village, said he was going to give renewed attention to his own foundation garden of 700 coffee trees. Sindrol also has two other gardens which he planted as a child many years ago when interest in coffee was high, and is now determined to applying the skills he has learnt in ensuring that all his trees productive.

Over the course of the programme, both theory and practical sessions were conducted, and advice was provided on block management practices, nursery set-up, coffee cherry drying and income management. The young people were taught how to differentiate between various coffee varieties and how best to go about producing a payable crop.

In order to ensure that the programme is sustainable, MMJV presented all participants with shade cloth for nursery and drying beds, scissors and saws for pruning, nails for the nursery buildings, and yellow cloth for the drying roofs. A total of 17 coffee pulping machines was also given to the participating villages.

MMJV General Manager for Sustainability and External Relations, David Wissink, said the company was serious in its commitment towards promoting sustainable development: “Mining, like many other mineral resource industries of this nature, has a defined time line. It won’t be here forever, and MMJV is committed to doing the right thing to our stakeholders by assisting with sustainable projects and programmes like fish farming, rural water supply installations and agricultural programmes and projects that will provide sustainable benefit to the people long after the mine is gone.”

MMJV is committed to supporting Mainland Holdings in their efforts to help Biangai villagers regain access to international markets through their incorporated coffee venture.