By Benorah Carrie Hesehing
The Kokonas Indastri Koperesen (KIK) has committed to supply twenty more kiln pipe to support organized farmer groups in coconut farming in parts of East and West Sepik provinces in May, 2024.
The KIK Senior Coconut Development Officer, Harold Joseph made this announcement this week during his visit to Wewak Islands, West Coast and Aitape to see the preparations leading to white copra production and sales in the region.
He said this assistance will ease the cost of building copra dryer as there is no strict specification for building materials apart from kiln pipe. The dryers can be a thatched, semi-permanent or permanent, on a measurement of 3 meters by 2 meters, 4 metres in height and double dryer beds.
With regard to white copra production, Mr Joseph encouraged all farmer groups to build transit storage sheds to store copra whilst waiting for it to be bought and transported by KIK’s subsidiary company, Coconut Resource Limited (CRL).
CRL was supposed to establish buying point in Wewak; however farmers were yet to beef up in order to produce the required initial quantity which was one container per shipment to the market.
Mr Joseph further says KIK has secured another copra market for PNG in Fiji, apart from that in Bangladesh and the first shipment began last week.
