Tuesday 26th September 2023
CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL UNDERWAY
The annual Chocolate Festival is underway.
This year’s three-day event is being hosted out of the Hutjena Oval on Buka Island, under the theme ‘Innovation and Information Sharing to Empower Farmers’.
A float promoting the event was staged yesterday, starting at Haku Constituency leading all the way into Buka Town.
The 5th Chocolate Festival already promises to be bigger and better, with close to 100 participants already booking a space to celebrate the event.
Vice President and Commerce, Trade and Industry Minister Patrick Nisira, the Minister for Technical Services Joseph Mona and the Ministe for Police and Correction Service John Bosco Ragu, as well as representatives from the Australian and New Zealand High Commissions are slated to grace the opening today.
Among events to happen within the festival are a chocolate competition, awards for best cocoa blocks, school quiz and debates, seminars to highlight new skills and techniques to cocoa farmers, an open visit to the Department of Primary Industries Chocolate testing facility at Kubu and cocoa games.
The major event is the cocoa sampling of beans from across the region.
Doctor James Butubu of the Department of Primary Industries, says over 33 samples have been received from farmers across Bougainville and 15 have so far passed the test of beign good samples that can be converted to producing chocolate.
Doctor Butubu further says, Bougainville remains one of the biggest producers of cocoa in the country, over 150-thousand tons annually, which equates to between 120 and 150-million Kina.
The Chocolate Festival is hosted by the Bougainville Partnership Program of the Australian High Commission, but there’s already a submission to the Autonomous Bougainville Government to take ownership of the event.
The ABG is eyeing the industry for downstream processing to boost quality among farmers while at the same time generate internal revenues through encouragement of cottage industries.
*NBC Bougainville News
No comments:
Post a Comment