South Coast Commodities provides lifeline for West New Britain cocoa farmers
Lemach Lavari reports on a businesswoman in a remote coastal village in West New Britain Province who has set up a supply chain for cocoa and seafood.
Entrepreneur Susan Hulo with the vessel she acquired to transport produce. Credit: Lemach Lavari
Building a business in Papua New Guinea as a woman can be challenging.
“People just don’t take you seriously,” says Susan Hulo, an entrepreneur now successfully working in the cocoa sector.
“My husband John Hulo had to do all initial meetings and the follow-ups for us to get things going,” she says.
“We now see that people have money to pay for school fees, build new homes and have money to travel.”
Hulo’s company, South Coast Commodities, provides market access to more than 2000 cocoa farmers and their families in the remote coastal village of Amulut in the Kandrian District of West New Britain Province.
The company buys cocoa beans from the farmers and sells them to exporters in Lae, a two-day boat journey away.
When Hulo started her business, there was no network to buy and sell cocoa from her village.
In 2010, she was on holiday in Amulut and noticed a very faded PGK5 note that was handed to her as change for a purchase she made. She then realised most of the money bills were old as well, indicating that these bills were in circulation for a long time in the community.
“How can I start cashflow and bring in new money here?” she thought.
Hulo’s immediate challenge was freight. There was no existing shipping route on the Solomon Sea that passed by Amulut’s shores. She had to negotiate with shipping companies in the region to service her people as well. Soon after, other island communities brought in seafood to sell to Hulo as well.
Despite her efforts, the ships would come only once a month, or not at all, and that was not good for business. She was losing money from the start. But her conviction to create wealth for her people and the potential for agriculture to change her people’s lives kept her motivated.
Hulo’s business eventually acquired a shipping vessel named Khawaii, which means ‘to travel’. This eased the burden of freight and generated the supply of more seafood and cocoa from neighbouring villages.
“We now see that people have money to pay for school fees, build new homes and have money to travel. We’ve worked with them to start up spin-off businesses like trade stores and retail fuel. Also to expand their farms to commercial sizes,” says Hulo.
Her next aim is to seek partnerships in government and the private sector to build a commercial wharf in Amulut so that cocoa from the region can be exported directly to overseas markets. Also on her wish list is to have a runway for small aircraft.
