Oil palm growers enjoying top price

*PNG palm oil considered one of the best in market
By SHEILA LASIBORI
LOCAL oil palm growers have had a very promising year despite a drop in global prices on Papua New Guinea’s agriculture commodities that included oil palm.
Local selling price for the palm has been increasing since January and it is predicted that it would continue to do so.
One reason and probably the main one has been the awarding of “roundtable on sustainable palm oil” certificate to oil palm companies, Otto Pukam, who is the manager for National Government’s Bialla Oil Palm project in West News Britain province, said.
He said the sustainable practices exercised country-wide led to the progress on oil palm sales because the palm was accepted at the global markets as their value was backed by the accreditation.
According to Mr Pukam, who spoke to The National from Bialla’s Oil Palm Industry Corp (OPIC) office, the 2,291 growers (mainly smallholders) in Bialla earned K13.3 million in total sales from January to May-end from their 13,869.8ha which produced 82,000 tonnes of the fruit.
Vigy Ponnudurai, general manager for CTP Cargill Group’s Higaturu Oil Palms (HOP) Co in Oro province, said yesterday oil palm prices had been increasing on the global markets, so the price for the palm sold by growers has been increasing too.
HOP has built a second mill at its Sumbiripa estate which is only waiting for the turbines to be brought from Colombo before it can start processing.
But the operational Mamba mill, which used to process 600 tonnes per day, was now processing 250 tonnes because of the unavailability of the bridge across the Kumusi River following the 2007 floods, preventing growers to transport their palms to the mill, he said.
Meanwhile, the Popondetta OPIC office says it will not be allowing any new oil palm projects.
“Because it is a new development and we do not have the money for such developments,” Graydon Hanguru, OPIC’s field manager, said.
He said with the construction of the new mill, growers would be working hard to sell more of their oil palm, adding that OPIC coordinated 5,707 growers who owned blocks that supplied mostly to HOP.
According to Mr Hanguru, selling prices for the last six months were: January – K91.36 per tonne; February – K117/tonne; March – K126.85/tonne; April – K150/tonne; May – K180/tonne. Last month, it was – K199.02/tonne.