THE noni revolution continues to benefit a rapidly growing number of rural communities.
Member of Parliament for Northwest Guadalcanal, Bodo Dettke paid a courtesy visit to the Governor General, Sir David Vunagi at the Government House on Tuesday 17th March for a brief touch base on the noni industry and how it is progressing.
Mr Dettke’s
visit comes as a follow-up on his Excellency’s speech from the Throne at the
opening of the 3rd Meeting of the 11th Parliament on Monday.
In his
speech, Sir David highlighted the need for an aggressive approach to stimulate
and harness interest in our rural areas in new local root crops, like kava,
ginger and noni, which he said, can become major commercial commodities for the
country.
Dettke briefed
the Governor General on how far the young noni industry has come and the many challenges
it faces with the government.
While it is clear that the potentials are for the industry to grow and
benefit our rural people, it can do even better if the government seriously
back it up with appropriate incentives.
He also
presented the Governor General with some of the products made out of noni which
were produced locally in his factory in Honiara and Australia.
During the
hour-long meeting, Dettke explained the process involved in this industry,
starting from harvesting in the farms, transportation to the factory,
separation of white fruits from green fruits, washing and the processing and
packaging in the factory.
Dettke also
explained the positive spinoffs this pioneer industry has brought to his people
of Northwest Guadalcanal compared to copra and cocoa, which requires hard work
and small returns from their sweat.
He said a
lot of families and individuals from other constituencies have also benefited
from this initiative because they sell their noni products every Tuesdays and
earned thousand dollars.
Unlike in
the past, women nowadays have to wait for days to earn money from their
produces sold at the Honiara Central market, or to compete for space with other
vendors to sell their products.
He goes on
to say, today even students and school drop outs are now heavily involved in
harvesting of noni and earning their own money after the sales.
Dettke
strongly believes that the noni industry can address the high unemployment rate
in the country, and the urban drift to Honiara if it is supported by the
government to eventually branch out to the provinces.
This will
allow people who plant noni in the provinces to sell their products to proposed
factories in the provincial centres rather than coming to Honiara.
Despite the
hype around noni, the Northwest Guadalcanal MP however points out that the
industry is currently faced with so many challenges.
In sharing
the Governor General’s sentiments on the serious need to take an aggressive
approach to bringing the highlighted crops to the forefront of our agricultural
sector, Dettke further stressed that noni should be seen as a fine example of
how viable this industry can be, as it has already been proven to have helped
improved so many lives of people in both rural and Honiara.
In reply,
Sir David, who is fond of planting noni in his village in Isabel, welcomed the
initiative made by Dettke.
He said
this is the kind of initiative which directly benefits the people in the rural
areas who continue to struggle to earn money.
In addition, he said the government must also support such initiative to grow in the country. In exchange of the visit, the Governor General is showing interest to visit the noni factory.
