Monday 10 December, Honiara – In Ngoragora village near Kirakira, villagers are at full swing implementing their agribusiness project that will ease economic burdens and immensely benefit the community in the not-too-distant future.
Working under the Central Bauro Cocoa Farmers Association, they are among nineteen (19) Agribusiness Organizations
(ABPOs) in Makira/Ulawa Province that have signed grant agreements and are implementing their business plan activities across key agricultural commodities.
The ABPOs are supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAL) through the World Bank funded Solomon Islands Agriculture and Rural Transformation (SIART) Project.
For villagers in Ngoragora, investing in their cocoa farms and partnering with farmers from nearby communities is the way forward for their community.
As part of the support, the association have recently completed their cocoa drier and started utilizing the financial capital provided to them by purchasing wet cocoa beans from their members and other famers in neighbouring communities for processing.
According to local farmer and Chairperson of the Central Bauro Cocoa, Robert Taemane, Kokonut Pacific Solomon Islands (KPSI) is the main buyer of their dry beans.
As part of its operations KPSI buys high quality cocoa beans from a network of local farmers in Solomon Islands providing a reliable market for farmers’ cocoa beans and facilitates transportation and consistent payment.
Taemane said during high crop, which is the season of high production or a high-quality yield of cocoa beans, the association can produce up to 1,000 to 2,000 kilos of dried beans.
“Aside from this high production during high crop, we also produce more than 200 kilos every week which we transport to our buyer from KPSI who is based in Kirakira,” Taemane said.
“The earnings from our sales is kept by the association as savings on behalf of our members,” he added.
SIART also supports farmers with farming tools and relevant trainings ranging from farm management to financial management enabling the ABPOs to properly manage their agribusiness.
“Our association only recently started operating as an agribusiness and already we are seeing the potential it has in benefitting our community in the long term.
“Already the association is helping people in the village with social obligations like a death of a family member. Meeting the school fees of our children is a commitment for every one of our members, and by investing in our cocoa farms through our ABPO, we are slowly easing that financial burden,” Taemane said.
Including the Central Bauro Cocoa Farmers Association, there are a total of 19 ABPOs in Makira/Ulawa Province supported by the SIART Project representing a SBD6.1 million investment in the agriculture sector in the province.
There are nine (9) ABPOs in cocoa with a SBD3.14 million investment, seven (7) cocoa with a SDB2.30 million investment and a honey and a small piggery project.
As part of its Agribusiness and Infrastructure Investment component, SIART aims to increase farm production and income, and farmers sell more products by forming the ABPOs.
These are groups of farmers and Agri-entrepreneurs who work together to access markets, financing, and support services.
Source: SIART Media Release