Fresh honey for PNG produced locally in Goroka

After recovering from a deadly bomb blast in the Philippines, Bena man Kelly Inae returned home to pursue his dreams – to produce honey for sale.

Mr Inae, 50, is now producing about 700kg of high quality honey every month for buyers in Goroka, Kundiawa, Port Moresby, and Alatou from his residence in Lipiga (Kafana) on the southwestern fringes of town.

His desire is to establish a modern honey processing factory to supply honey to all major stores and institutions in the country with his “Mountain Honey”.
When Kelly was a grade one student at Siokie Primary School in 1976 an American missionary, Fred Peipman, introduced him to honey for the first time.
After school he would stagger on to Rev Peipman’s residence at Napamogena and helped out by looking after the missionary’s beehives.
Kelly continued to the then Goroka Demonstration High School and has worked with some private firms.

After several years with private firms he signed up with MV Doulos, a ship dedicated to spreading the word of God across the globe.
The Bena man has sailed to over 20 countries including Vietnam, Russia, Korea, India, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Indonesia.
“We called into the port city of Zamboanga in the Philippines in August 1991.
“About 200 metres away from the shoreline we were attending a Christian rally when Muslim extremists detonated the deadly device (a home-made bomb).
“I was badly injured in the explosion but the good Lord spared my life,” he told the Post-Courier in an exclusive interview.

Mr Inae is still carrying visible scars on his legs and abdomen.
In 2003 he returned home and bought a box of beehives from a local bee farmer in his village.
“I sold the honey and bought 10 more boxes (beehives) within two years.”
In 2006, Mr Inae moved to Goroka and acquired a piece of land from traditional (Kafana) landowners to continue honey production.
He increased his beehives to 45 (boxes) and extracted the honey for sale to the public and to stores.
He hired seven workers to help him with the workload apart from his “helpful spouse” Phanta Inae.

Kelly is also providing training on beekeeping to farmers as well as prospective farmers in Eastern Highlands, Chimbu, Jiwaka and Western Highlands provinces.
He has accumulated vast knowledge on beekeeping and production as he collected many book on this subject from the countries he visit while working on MV Doulos.
“Currently I have about 300 bee farmers in the Highlands who affiliated to me by selling their harvest to me for K14 per kilogram,” he said.

“As am giving this interview I have 7,000 kilogram of honey in my yard.”
He registered his company with the Investment Promoy Authority (IPA) as Helping Hand Honey and his product is labeled as “Mountain Honey.”

Those wishing to know more about Kelly and his honey business may call him on 71258799 or email: helpinghandhoney@gmail.com 

Source: Post courier newspaper.

A villager's success story can be used as a model for PNG villages

In Modern Business you need to have assets,capital (finance),human resources(mind and helping hand) and great/innovative idea to succeed.We have been customarily trained to seek them out in the urban centres at huge costs.

We tend to forget that all those are found FREE right in the doorsteps of our own Villages in PNG. Abundant free arable and fertile farm land,communal village manpower in abundance,Free Gods rain and Sun, free rain-forests, flora and fauna.Why search and reaching out for the initial CASH to start up a VILLAGE BUSINESS? Unnecessary!

Look at our JIWAKA mans story at page 37 of the National Newspaper yesterday (Thursday 27th December). Thompson Gurr is a practicing agriculturalists in his village in the Jiwaka Province.He is now able to show us the virtues of working and tilling our own land! In two seasons he had made a total of K40 grands in the Watermelon business.He has developed the niche for business and is now seeking out to expand his business into a larger farming.

Thompson no doubt will succeed with improved cash-flow! Given time and a market,his business will thrive and prosper.The ripple effect is this;

1) many of the village people will be employed
to work on the business and earn an income

2)other bidding small business minded individuals will emulate and undertake similar
or other business activities.More village members would get involved and give their helping hand to help grow the businesses
3) The entire village will get involved in cultivating their FREE land into business activities and income! Law and Order issues may be diminished.Peace and order may be the order of the village in the long term and sustainable.
4)Government can ably deliver other necessary social services(schools,health,road infrastructure and transport,electricity,water,sanitation,internet/digital and other services) to benefit all communities.

Thompson didn't start off his business with borrowed money because it was unnecessary.All the essentials for a business undertaking were readily available in the village and he utilized all of them well to start up a small successful PNG VILLAGE BUSINESS!

CAN THIS MODEL BE USED NATIONALLY TO TRANSFORM EVERY PNG VILLAGE?

The answer is a resounding YES! First we need to have role models like Thompson in every single village in PNG. Self motivated and enterprising business minded individuals like Thompson can be used to identify,nurture and develop many others in other neighbouring villages where there is none.Government can empower this process in the following way in a well coordinated and supervised manner to minimize wastage of resources;

1) all current working class (educated individuals) from ALL villages in PNG will be required by their employment contracts to assist transform their villages by encouraging village entrepreneurial skills and businesses.The Government can undertake oversight by empowering the educated elites from both the public and private sectors who will be obliged to undertake this voluntary work on weekends and extended holidays.Any Government assistance can be guided through the working class individuals who can be made to account through their respective employers and the village leadership(which is often powerful with the element of shame involved in punishing misbehaviour)

2) The Government must create both domestic and international markets to sustain any large scale VILLAGE focused businesses in PNG (involving over 15,000 villages).The challenge is to find a substantial international consumer market.

3) If approximately 1.5 million small village based businesses are created in PNG by this process(at 100 different businesses per village),the country will meaningfully transform forever.The people would now be able to empower themselves financially/ economically and free up the Government to focus on social and other development service deliveries(not to mention the substantial income tax contributions by the village based 1.5 million businesses which can run into several billions)

COSTS

The Government is currently creating so many unnecessary overlapping Institutions of all kinds to address the issues of developing rural PNG. None of them are working effectively with all annual funding drying up before reaching the recipients resulting in lack of progresses at all levels.

The answer lies in using each village's own educated working class elites(in both public and private sectors) to undertake the process of empowering every single PNG village with the private employers and Governments effective OVERSIGHTS! This approach will be cost effective and will prevent unnecessary wastage!

Source: Paul Paraka - Facebook.

PNG vanilla prices to be steady over the next two (2) years

Acting Secretary for Agriculture Francis Daink said with confidence that the current prices of vanilla may hold for the next two years.

He said this amidst rising confidence coming out of world number one Madagascar as it recovers from and large downturn in production over the last three years.
He said quality remains the major factor as PNG took on the opportunity to meet supply in the place of world number one Madagascar’s misfortunes in production falls.

“I would like to reiterate on the quality of the product, the price of vanilla shot up because the biggest producer in the world, Madagascar, has some problems with their droughts and we see that it is going to be maintained for another two years,’’ he said.
“The assurance I have got from the reports that is coming in is that we will still maintain that high price for the next two years.

“We need to make sure that the quality is paramount and it is the responsibility of every sector from the department all the way to the provinces.”
In making reference to provinces, he thanked the government for its allocation in 2018 of K2 million which has gone into the establishment of the new board, currently taking place, and other programs set for delivery.

He said assistance has been rendered to the East Sepik Provincial Administration as the major production hub currently in the country.
“In terms of the quality control, the training, they have engaged NARI to go and do that quality extension program for them so that people are aware of how in terms of the processing and production and marketing as well,’’ he said.

“A lot of the products are marketed at the border which is restricted and that is something that we expected some form of funding from request from the Sandaun Provincial Administration, but it did not come, but we will assist them next year in terms of maintaining the check points at Wutung at the border so that at least that illegal trading is not done there.

“We have also assisted Madang provincial administration in terms of vanilla also assisted NARI in terms of funding in terms of maintaining root stocks for us so that farmers can get the good quality root stocks from NARI.
“So we continue to maintain the vanilla industry in this country.”

Source: Post Courier newspaper

New Ireland hails successful growth with agricultural development

Three experienced agriculture development specialists have just completed field work for a study of agricultural possibilities on New Ireland.
The intention of the exercise was to identify the untapped potential for village agricultural development.

Production and sale of agricultural products offers the chance for many villagers to participate in the cash economy and enjoy the benefits that arise from this.
Announcing this, Shadow Treasurer and MP for Kavieng Ian Ling-Stuckey said the study was done for Kavieng and Namatanai electorates.

“My response to the disappointing 2019 budget included practical suggestions for getting growth going again in PNG in ways that truly benefitted our people,” he said.
He said the experienced agricultural development specialists targeted the untapped potential for village agricultural development, production and sales and participation in the cash economy.

He said they covered Tikana, Lovongai, Central and Namatanai LLG areas including New Hanover and Tabar islands, Panamecho, Lelet and Danmirik. They also had discussions with catering and community engagement staff from Lihir and Simberi gold mines, representatives from the World Bank, the market development facility, the PHAMA market access program, KIK, NPOL and PPAP, UNDP and ACIAR cocoa projects, Kavieng agri-business managers from Poliamba Oil Palm, Bisi Trading and Emirau Marine Products, as well as himself and the MP for Namatanai, Walter Schnaubelt.

The agriculture team identified improvements for both subsistence food production and cash crops, such as pathogen-tested sweet potato, improved varieties, agronomy and scheduling of fresh produce for formal markets, and introduction of clonal cocoa varieties combined with improved management practices. Training in food production and basic nutrition at high schools, as well as village agriculture will also be recommended. Cash crops examined included cocoa, fresh food, oil palm, coconut products, galip, vanilla, betel nut and balsa. Information was gathered to prepare business plans for each possible cash crop.

“I am pleased that this expert team, in consultation with our people, consider that some of the proposed activities could be commenced early in 2019 as there is sufficient information and expertise in PNG to start these soon,” he said.

“As I said in my budget response rather than planning a massive agriculture subsidy to besties, a subsidised cow herd or plans to bring tens of thousands of foreign workers to grow rice, I am starting with some very specific possibilities to improve agriculture. The aim is to both lift growth, but equally importantly, the plan is to raise the level of nutrition in my district.

“This agriculture mission and their recommendations are the type of practical, evidence-based steps that could be expected from a new coalition government which we hope will be formed early in 2019.”

Source: Post Courier newspaper.