PNG–based Israeli Company Starts Selling Milk Products at Half the Price
APapua New Guinea-based Israeli company, Innovative Agro,has begun producing a variety of fresh milk products near the capital Port Moresby.
The dairy farm’s milk is sold for half the price of that imported from Australia and New Zealand, partly because of new import tariffs introduced in PNG.
The company said the farm was self-sustaining, producing 80 per cent of its own feed on a 260-hectare plot, using bore water and solar power for back-up.
“We did our economics, our business models, and the feasibility studies, the boxes ticked and we went ahead and delivered the project,” executive director Ilan Weiss said.
The locally produced milk, yogurt and ice cream could replace imported dairy products coming from Australia and New Zealand — both major exporters of dairy products to PNG.
The PNG Government placed high tariffs on milk importers in its 2018 budget and Mr Weiss said the local milk would stay cheaper than the imports.
About 500 cows kept at a farm on the city’s outskirts supply the milk.
The brand new facility cost about $50 million to build and now has about 200 Papua New Guineans working there.
Among them are university graduates like trainee vet Christabeth Audubo.
Audubo is part of a small number of young university graduates able to find employment in PNG. Another Papua New Guinean graduate, Adasha Ramo, works as a data assistant.
She graduated from the PNG University of Technology. “In school its mostly theory, we didn’t learn in detail, only the basics in anatomy, coming into here we learn more about dairy,” she said.
The company is now considering opening farms in other parts of Papua New Guinea.