PNG Project turning cassava into ethanol expands
Updated
RAA multi-million-dollar project to export cassava from Papua New Guinea to produce ethanol is gaining momentum, with its expansion into a second province.The company Changhae Tapioca is establishing 40-thousand hectares of cassava crops, which will be sent to Korea to be turned into biofuel.The deal is worth about 15 million dollars in export earnings and is expected to create more than 5 thousand new jobs.
Presenter: Jean Edwards
EDWARDS: Cassava has long been a staple food crop for many in the Pacific, but its economic potential as a source of biofuel in the islands is only just being realised.
The firm, Changhae Tapioca has been importing cassava chips from Vietnam and Indonesia, and turning it into ethanol in Korea for the past 40 years. Now the company has turned its attention to Papua New Guinea. A 20-thousand hectare pilot project in the Rego district in the Central Province has now been extended to the new island province.
Leli Kardina is heading the venture for the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. He says it has two phases.
KARDINA: Phase one will be the production phase where the company will actually grow its own cassava from the 20-thousand nuclear sectors, at the same time to buy cassava from the outgrowers and it will be exported to Korea, where it will be processed.
That will go for may be for another two or three years. Once the production level has increased, then the company will build the processing plant here in Papua New Guinea.
EDWARDS: The company is investing about 120 million dollars in establishing the cassava plantation and setting up the factory. The raw product will be exported to Korea for processing in the meantime.
John Lim from Changhae Tapioca says the company eventually hopes to export 500 thousand tonnes of cassava from Papua New Guinea a year. He says it's an ideal place to grow the crop commercially.
LIM: The climate is assurable and also the rich soil and the land has a lot of marginal land to grow cassava in PNG, like Indonesia and other countries that is not enough land to grow cassava.
EDWARDS: Rosa Kanbuou is a scientist at the National Agriculture Research Institute. She says staff are testing about ten varieties to see which had the highest yield before recommending some to the company.
KANBUOU: The varieties are doing very well there now. By the end of the year, we'll know which varieties, then we'll select out of the ten we are testing now, they select three, four, how many good varieties. The highest yield we have from our experiment of product is 60 tonnes per hectare.
EDWARDS: Local farmers will also be able to grow cassava for export.
Leli Kardina from the Agriculture Ministry says they stand to benefit a great deal.
KARDINA: Once they become outgrowers and they start growing their own cassava, they will definitely sell it to the company. There will be market available, so once people sell the produce to the market, they will have cash in their pockets. So in that way I think we see it's going to be a lot of benefit to the people.
EDWARDS: John Lim agrees.
LIM: There are many areas undeveloped and this type of crop to introduce to those rural areas. I mean this significantly will increase their job opportunity as well as their farmers income.
