Agreement Enables Smallholder Farmers to Export Vanilla

Smallholder Vanilla farmers from 20 clans in Madang will now protect their land, forest and rivers from unsustainable activities and increase their produce to export overseas, the Australia High Commission says.

The commission said in a statement that the agribusiness Kamapim Ltd was working with partners, including USAID Lukautim Graun Programme, Wildlife Conservation Society and the local Yikmol landowner association for an environment conversion campaign recently.

This followed an agreement signed between the landowners and the organisations to protect about 3,775 hectares of land and rainforests while smallholder vanilla farmers would have access to training, better markets and affordable credit with a resilient livelihood.

It said Market Development Facility (MDF) programme, and the Australian government-supported private sector development initiative, partnered with Kamapim in 2020 to support the development of an environmentally sustainable vanilla business model involving 500 smallholder farmers in the conservation area.

The partnership would expand its farmer outreach programme by recruiting new field officers who would train farmers on producing high-quality beans, which could be exported to Europe. Kamapim Ltd facilitates the export and also pays the farmers a premium for the higher quality.

MDF also signed with Kamapim, MiBank and GSMA last year, and introduced a digital loan product for smallholders called a "rural loan", which uses a credit scoring mechanism that allows vanilla farmers to access microcredit based on their farmer profile rather than physical asset collateral.

MDF representative Susan Inu thanked the farmers for their effort to protect the environment.