BANDO HIGHLIGHTS AMBITIOUS PLANS FOR THE COFFEE SECTOR

The Coffee Ministry under the leadership of Minister William Bando is set to revolutionize the coffee sector to ensure funding reaches small holder and block holder coffee farmers.

Minister Bando revealed an ambitious plan where a Green Gold Card concept will be introduced to realize this.

K10 million kina has been earmarked for the coffee freight and price support initiative where farmers can access through the Green Gold Card concept.

When the coffee minister was asked today on the government’s commodity freight subsidy program, Coffee Minister William Bando was a little emotional as he described how farmers are not able to reach the markets due to dilapidated road conditions and went further to call on the government to prioritize these economic roads under the Connect PNG program.

“The epicenter of coffee is in Eastern Highlands and sometimes I tend to wonder, and the questions that are being asked on this floor, on the Connect PNG program that there are places in Eastern Highlands where 70 to 80 percent of our coffee come from, similarly to oil plam, to cocoa, to copra.

These are the places where we need to connect them up with roads. Connect PNG program funding is not a funding to connect one district to another within a province,” said Bando.

He also explained where the freight subsidy funds for commodity are being kept, saying this funding is with the Agriculture Department and his attempts to access these funds have been futile.

He then highlighted his ministry’s plans to introduce programs that will help farmers access funding for freight and price support.

“We will introduce what we call a Green Gold Card. That card operates on a similar way as the visitor arrival cards. When you go out of the country or any visitor that comes into the country, they complete a form called the “Arrival Form”. It’s the same principle but we will extend it to include the name of the village, the council ward, the LLG, the district and the province where that farmer is from. We will also include bank details of that particular farmer,” the minister outlined.

Every time a farmer sells coffee, whether ist green or dried beans to buyers, he/she fills out a form that will be put there by CIC. CIC then keeps all the data and will be able to identify who the real farmers, and provide them funding from the k10 million Price Support Money. He explained how this will work.

“Every month, that form will be remitted to CIC (Coffee Industry Corporation).

“That form will be lodged at CIC and CIC will enter it into a database that we’re developing. And at the end of each month, you get a print out of who is the real coffee farmer out there, that individual by name, by account details, by council ward, by LLG, by district and by province. So we as politicians, it’s a rare opportunity that’s been created by coffee that we can tap into the CIC system and then you get a print out every month and you will see who the coffee farmers are out there. And this can be emulated into oil palm, into cocoa and into copra.”

Bando described this as a paradigm shift and is certain this will work for the benefit of rural farmers.