Cocoa Beans, Copra and Cookies

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: One of the ways AusAID is helping to rehabilitate the economic fortunes and wellbeing of Bougainville is through reviving the cocoa and copra industries - and also making other ventures possible.

Man with Bougainville co-workers looking at truck load of cocoa beans There are changes for the better going on in Bougainville. For the past six years a versatile agricultural project is helping individuals to start - or in some cases restart - the region's cocoa and copra businesses.

Trevor Clarke, Australian team leader of a cocoa and copra dryer rehabilitation operation with co-workers, Telatu in 2002.

The AusAID-funded Bougainville Cocoa and Copra Dryer Rehabilitation Project has been running for the past five years. In that time it has concentrated on restoring cocoa and copra dryers, developing new cocoa fermentation units and introducing a finance facility - or grant system -- to fund small-scale enterprises.

Raymond Gimots received a mini cocoa dryer through the project in 2001 after providing 25 per cent equity and attending the project's cocoa fermentation and processing training program. He dried his first beans a month later and has been improving his farming operation ever since. These days he confidently harvests, ferments and dries his own beans and, as a result, he's doubled his income. In the last couple of years he's been able to invest in a vanilla production enterprise, a commercial cocoa tree nursery and upgrade his farm equipment. 'My next goal is a larger dryer which I'm saving for now,' he says.

Pauline Togein lives in Buka, one of Bougainville's most disadvantaged areas due to the fact the land is unsuitable for cocoa and copra. But attending one of the project's business awareness sessions for women in mid 2004 Pauline heard about its grant system. Her ears pricked up. Pauline, who has four children, was worried about school fees.

Two things came together - a good idea and the means to implement it. Pauline knew she had an excellent recipe for cookies given to her by her aunt in Rabaul and thought if she had a drum oven she could earn a reasonable income from baking.

Within two months, the project approved Pauline's application for the partial funding of a drum oven and had it delivered.

Pauline now bakes cookies every evening with the help of her husband and sells them in the village the next day. Three times a week she also bakes extra batches to sell at the Buka market. She uses some of her extra income to buy food for her family but most of it goes in the bank for school fees - although recently there was an exception.

'I decided to buy a sewing machine,' she says. 'I'm doing well with the cookies but making clothes is yet another way I can increase my income.'

What's more, Pauline, who lives in a small bush house, has almost saved enough money to start building a permanent house for her growing family.

2006