Photo credit: Department of Agriculture and Livestock
According to Oil Palm Industry Corporation (Opic) acting general-secretary Kepson Pupita, the rehabilitation of smallholder oil palm blocks would result in more money being earned.
Pupita was recently in Alotau, Milne Bay, to gift Opic workers with a motorcycle and tour abandoned dwellings on project sites.
Opic also compensated around 26 farmers who were hired to clean their blocks as part of the Opic initiative.
“In 2019, in the Alotau project, we did 687,117 metric tonnes of fresh fruit bunch,” Pupita said.
“In 2020, the time we started doing some intervention activities with the support of the government for the first time, our production went up to 733,724 metric tonnes.
“That is a small increase of 7 per cent or 46,607 metric tonnes.
“But in terms of kina, we brought in K65 million to the farmers – the gross earnings paid to the farmers.”
The Alotau project, which comprises 1,522 hectares of cultivated oil palm, has around 843 smallholder farmers.
“I continue to tell farmers that this increase in 60 per cent of world price will continue to spiral up thanks to the Coronavirus (Covid-19),” Pupita said.
“In the local communities people continue to work, because they are already isolated, the families live on their own.
“And that is the advantage of agriculture, and we will have to continue to promote agriculture.”
Reference: The National (11 October 2021). “Restoration of oil palm blocks will bring money: Official”.
