cOCONUT IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Coconut is called “tree of life” and is used as both cash crop and for food. It’s grown by about 90 countries worldwide. In PNG, the crop is closely associated with pre-independence history. Moreover, in PNG alone, ~380 million nuts are consumed annually. Some data shows that Madang alone supplies ~250,000 nuts monthly to the Highlands region (~2.7 million nuts/year).
As dried copra product, coconut is the 4th largest agricultural commodity export, making it a million kina industry. The Kokonas Indastri Koporesin (KIK) has been promoting “white copra” production, which is a high quality product.
We have built a commercial dryer and buy dry coconuts from farmers, process white copra, and export. In future, we plan to look at other coconut products like VCO.