About Papua New Guinea (PNG)
Located in the Pacific region just north of Australia, Papua New
Guinea is an island of spectacular scenery and culture. Because
of its tropical location and its diverse topography, Papua New
Guinea is home to unique plant and animal species found no where
else on Earth.
In addition to this biodiversity, human cultural diversity is
just as amazing and colorful.
Nestled in amongst all of this, in the mountains that run down
the spine of the island, live many thousands of village farmers
whose lifeblood is coffee growing.
Organic coffee production
Coffee is the number one cash crop in the highlands of Papua New
Guinea. Over 2 million people (40% of the country's total
population) depend both directly and indirectly on money earned
from coffee to purchase household pay children's school fees,
provide clothing and medicines and take care of cultural
obligations.
The concept of organic coffee was first introduced
into PNG in 1991 and even today there are only three areas with
organic coffee certification. On average over the past five
years, 600 tons of certified organic coffee have been exported
annually from PNG, which is roughly 0.5% of PNG's total coffee
production. This makes PNG organic coffee special for both
consumers and producers.
Because these villagers live in such remote places, their coffee
must be picked up by airplanes on grass landing strips, or for
those lucky enough to have road access, it must be trucked to
the nearest town. Unfortunately the roads are in terrible
condition and even tractors can end up with broken axles from
the trip. Coffee Connections has initiated a program of road
improvements to help these growers get their coffee to market.
