Meet the Growers

My name is Kay and I am from Arikaufa Village, Goroka. I have been working with New Guinea Fruit Company for over 20 years. I started beekeeping 10 years ago when NGF started providing training for beekeeping. I started with 1 hive and now I have 14, my goal is to reach 50 hives, that would be my dream. I do my beekeeping on the weekends. I find it very interesting. NGF is buying honey at a very good price so with the money I get from selling my honey I pay for my children’s school fees, as well as supporting my family’s livelihood. I save some money from it which I use for community support when there is bride price or funeral expenses in the village.

I am David and I am from Goroka. I have been working with New Guinea Fruit Company for 9 years and my current position is Supervisor for Honey processing. I am also a Ginger farmer and Beekeeper. I sell ginger and honey to the company to supplement my income. I started planting and selling ginger 3 years ago, I harvest around 30 ginger bags from my garden each year and leave about 6 bags for seedlings for my next planting. Each bag is about 46kg of ginger. The money I get from ginger I use to pay my sons school fees. He is now in technical college so what I get from ginger is a big help for his education. I also started beekeeping 4 years ago with 1 hive and I now have 7 hives. I want to keep increasing my hives so the money I get from selling honey I use to buy more items to increase my hives. I want to grow my hives to 20 and I will be happy with that.

Mi blo Lufa. Mi na man bro mi save salim strawberi, jinja, tamarillo na lemon long New Guinea Fruit Company. Lo yia 2002 mitupla stat planim na kisim kaikai kam salim long NGF, na nau NGF helpim mipla lo lukautim hani bi. Mi gat 8 pla pikinini, mani mipla kisim long salim ol kaikai save helpim famili bilong mipla. Mi laik tok tenkyu long NGF long sponsa na baim skul fee blo bikpela pikinini man bilong mi i go long Teachers College. Nau em wok olsem tisa. Mi na man blo mi save kisim ol kaikai kam salim lo NGF tupla taim lo wanpla wik, olsem na ol wokmanmeri blo NGF ol stap olsem famili blo mipla.

Nem bilong mi Joseph. Mi gat 50 krismas na mi blo Central Lufa. Mi marit na mi gat 5 pla pikinini. Ples bilong mi stap aninit long Maunten Michael. Taim mi harim olsem New Guinea Fruit stat long baim tamarillo lo taim kampani em first stat, mi stat planim tamarillo. Tamarillo lo ples blo mi em sa gro natin lo olgeta hap olsem wel frut. Nau mi gat bikpela gaden blo tamarillo aninit long Maunten Michael. Mi save baim tu tamarillo long ol liklik fama long ples blo mipla, na bungim olgeta na kisim i kam na salim long kampani.

My name is Andrew Atene, from Sagifa Central Bena. I am a bee keeper and I started beekeeping in the year 2012. I started with 2 hives, then built it up to 50 hives and now currently reaching almost 80 hives. I have been selling my honey to NGF all these years and I can say that bee keeping has truely changed my life. With the income from my honey I have built 2 sheds to assist with my bee keeping work. 1 shed to keep materials and the other to extract honey. Right now I am building myself a German roof house to live in. I have also bought 3 motorbikes to help me get between my hive locations and to town. With the money I get from honey I have also bought 3 water tanks to store water, I have bought a Lucas Sawmill which I now use to cut wood for building. I have been paying for my children’s school fees and normal household expenses in addition to all of that. Whenever I ask NGF for help they are always there to help me, when I need a car to assist me they provide a car for me, when I need strips for my hives or sugar for my bees when they go hungry I buy that from NGF. My aim is to build my hives up to 300 hives and I will be happy with that and my dream is to someday go to New Zealand to meet other bee keepers.

My name is Heseka Harry and I am from Bena District. I started beekeeping in 2019 with 1 hive and now I currently have 120 hives. My aim is to keep going to 300 hives. I have been selling my honey to New Guinea Fruit company and was able to build myself and my family a house, I am currently also building a shed to keep all my beekeeping equipment and from my last honey sale I bought a 6 frame electric honey extractor to assist with my work. I have a bus to which I obtained a loan from FinCorp to purchase so selling honey has been assisting me to offset this loan. I also use the income from honey to pay for my children’s school fees, my oldest daughter is now in grade 9 and my honey income has been supporting her fees along with the younger ones who are still in primary school. I would like to buy a car soon, that will help me expand my hive locations so I can increase my hives and set up in places where there are no other hives.