Cocoa farmers from a remote community living along the Sepik River are now connected to the leading cocoa industry players in the country and overseas and receive a premium price for their quality cocoa products.

With support from the EU-STREIT PNG Programme and PNG Investment Promotion Authority (IPA), MUPA Cocoa Cooperative Society, which comprised of 240 farmers from two villages in Yuat LLG of Angoram District in East Sepik Province, established a business link with Queen Emma Chocolate Company.

Recently, they sent their first shipment of quality beans to the chocolate-making company, achieving a considerably higher market price.

Director of MUPA Cocoa Cooperative Ltd, Sperian Kapia said the company is paying a higher rate for their dried beans at K630 per bag, which is more than the average price offered by intermediary buyers.

Their first shipment consisted of 40 bags of quality dried beans, fetched an additional K4,000 into the cooperative’s bank account.

The EU-STREIT PNG Programme is working on improving the access of local agricultural enterprises to domestic and overseas markets.

This includes organising exposure visits to national and international agri-food trade shows, where the Sepik-based agripreneurs can learn, interact, identify potential buyers, and forge new business opportunities.

Kapia was one of the Sepik cocoa model farmers who participated in the International Food Service & Hospitality Exhibition in Singapore in August 2022, where he initiated the market link with Queen Emma Chocolate Company.

“It was there that Queen Emma Chocolate’s representatives showed interest in our cocoa and invited me to visit their factory in Port Moresby. We reached to an agreement to supply the company with our unique cocoa dried beans,” said Kapia.

Kapia said with these support, they were also introduced to a new potential buyer from New Zealand, the Pacific Cocoa 380.

“The EU-STREIT PNG Programme assisted us in freighting 20 KG of our cocoa dried beans to New Zealand, where they tasted our cocoa, and has shown interested in the quality.”

Kapia said they have agreed to buy 15 to 20 tons of cocoa dried beans from MUPA.

This premium price paid for dried beans and extra income generated at the cooperative level, allows MUPA and affiliated fermentaries to pay a higher rate for wet beans, extending the benefits to farmers at the grassroots level, who produce and supply wet beans to fermentaries.

“The usual price for wet beans used to be lower, around K1.4 per KG, but thanks to the direct connection formed with the premium buyers, we are now able to pay farmers at a higher price, at K1.7 per KG of wet beans, which is 21 percent above the normal rate,” Kapia explained.

“This helps the parents in my community to pay for their kids’ school fees, buy utensils for their houses, and food to improve family’s diets.”

“With this support and market arrangement that gives us more money, we can also continue to support our farmers in terms of social development; we have school and want to support it in terms of infrastructure and educational material, also our health care.”

This connection and access to market is something different and promising for our farmers,” Kapia said.

Related: https://insidepng.com/eu-streit-program-partners-with-agri-enterprises/