2 hours Ago By Nancy Kalimda
THE Morobe Provincial Government and district authorities must support farmers to bring back the focus of the Morobe Agriculture Show. Agriculturalist and former officer of the Department of Agriculture and Livestock for Morobe Gideon Tombaike said the show is supposed to showcase agriculture diversity but over the years, agriculture displays and participation by farmers have dropped. He said this is because there has been lack or no support from the provincial government and districts to organise the farmers to bring their garden produce to the show and provide transport assistance.
Mr Tombaike has been involved in the show since the 1980s until 2001 when he retired. As the Kabwum district DAL officer, he was responsible for oganising and bringing the farmers to display their produce at the show. He said from 1980 to 2000, there were really good agriculture displays on variety of garden foods such as cabbages, onions, beans as well as cash crops such as coffee from Kabwum.
”The officers of the DAL in each district took the lead in bringing together the farmers. Government also allocated funds for transportation. Even small planes were used to transport foods for the displays, especially for districts that are not connected by road like Kabwum.
This allowed for more and a variety of agriculture displays,” he said. He said the provincial government and district government authorities should support and fund the DAL to engage farmers in each districts to participate in the show each year. ”Only by doing this, we will be able to revert to the original intention and focus of the show which is agriculture.
The farmers want to participate but needs support,” Mr Tombaike said. Most of the farmers who represented their districts at this year’s show, did this at their own expense. Erica Baing Bernard from Markham and Celestine Mong from Kabwum are two women farmers who met most of the cost of bringing their produce themselves to represent their districts.
For Mrs Bernard, it has been nine years since she started participating in the show in 2016 while this year was the first time Mrs Mong attended the show..
