Arabica Coffee from High Altitudes of Sarawaget
Rehabilitation & Maintenance
We rehabilitated 742 gardens totalling 112,000 coffee trees in Erap. Many of these gardens were old, and planted in the 1960's, and over-grown with shade and neglected. We also distributed tools and materials like bush/grass knives, files, spades, secateurs, and pruning saws. This was used for rehabilitation work like pruning and shade control, drainage, replanting of dead trees, de-suckering, weeding, and fencing.
Nurseries & New Seedlings
We established 8x nurseries using purified seeds obtained from CIC Aiyura. A total of 216,860 coffee seedlings were grown and distributed to farmers in Erap. Each farmer received 270 seedlings each. The varieties used were Typica, Arusha and Mundonovo, all well suited to cool and high altitude climates. The seedlings were distributed duing 2019, and have since been planted and are bearing cherries.
Processing & Postharvest Quality
We trained farmers on how to identify and harvest only fully red-ripe cherries, and best practices in pulping, fermentation, washing, and drying. We supplied 407 pulpers, build 547 solar drying beds, distributed 1500 meters coffee film rolls, built and supplied 100 metal drying bed frames. We also built 3x mini wet-mill (35 kg/hr capacity) for centralized processing of cherry coffee at 3x villages.
Marketing & Market Support
During the PPAP project period (2016-2019), we marketed 65,156 kg parchment coffee under Group Marketing arrangements, and paid income to smallholder coffee farmers in Erap. We also certified 776 growers with 122.4 ha under NASSA/USDA organic certification. We also built a 1 ton/hr capacity coffee factory mill which now provides market for coffee farmers right across PNG.