16. Growing kau kau and making silage in Hela province

 Once the villagers had agreed to trial kau kau crops grown with best practice farming techniques we  got going with crop production on the model farms.

Noel and Isidor and later Lester established 12 model farms at about ten sites throughout the wider Nogoli district.  Later a group of women from Tari got together and formed the Hela-WAL women’s group.  They were a very impressive group and strongly articulated the view that the project offered away for the clans to work together.  WAL hired two additional staff members to assist with technology delivery.

 

NARI had developed genetically superior kau kau varieties.  These yielded about four times the weight of kau kau compared with unimproved varieties.  When combined with the advantages that came with reduced viral and pest load associated with only using the vines for six generations to prevent disease build up, together with modern agronomic techniques and careful handling of the young vines (krus) our collaborating model farmers could expect best practice yields.  Drought, however, was a periodic threat. 

Figure 1. Ridges ready for kau kau planting

Figure 2. Isidor (3rd from left) demonstrating planting technique.

Figure 3. The growing crop

 

Figure 4. The crop harvested and washed.

Because of a range of factors probably linked to high rainfall and leaching of soil nutrient, together with extended use of the same kau kau plants over generations, the villagers were worried that they would never see a reasonable crop again.

 When the first crops started rolling in, they were both surprised and delighted.  Noel and Isidor estimated yields of 30 tonnes per hectare albeit from small gardens of about 0.2-0.5 hectares.  It was a terrific start.  Better than that they were well paid for their effort.  The WAL board, to offer an incentive to participate, had set a price for the kau kau crop of 80 toea (about 32 cents) per kilogram or 800 Kina per tonne (about AUD$320).  This was less than the retail market price of one kina per kg, however WAL took all shapes and sizes.  Better, it bought tonnes of Kau kau rather than the kilograms sold in the market.  Until now there has been no market in Hela for commercial kau kau crops.  However, the 800 Kina per tonne was a very high price to pay for stock feed and one that the business could never sustain.  The value of the kau kau was effectively set by the price of pork produced by WAL’s competitors in the Markham valley.  They feed wheat and sorghum largely imported from Australia, but some corn is locally grown.  Australian wheat landed in PNG costs about 1600-1800 Kina per tonne.  Wheat is 90% dry matter.  Kau kau is about 30% dry matter.  On a dry matter basis, the energy level of the two is about the same.  Wheat, however, has a protein level of 9-12% compared with kau kau of 5.5%, hence a kilogram of kau kau can only be worth, at most, about one third the value of wheat.  In PNG that makes Kau kau worth about 530-600 Kina per tonne at the most without allowing for the additional processing costs or the lower protein level.

In our proof-of-concept studies we had developed a way of processing the kau kau and making silage (see chapter ten).  In the highlands Lester and Isidor built above ground bunkers set on a concrete pad.  The bunkers were about 4m*1.5 m*1.2m and designed to hold about 6-9 tonnes of silage.  The villagers were scared their bunkers would be destroyed or the silage stolen so they built their bunker inside an enclosed area.  This turned out to be useful during wet weather when people could work inside to process the kau kau

Figure 5.  Silage bunker inside its enclosure

 

Figure 6.  Cutting the larger tubers to size

The villagers cut the kau kau tubers to size so they could fit into the chute of the chipper and then loaded them by hand or shovel into the chipper.  The machine could process about one tonne per hour, but it took a couple days to fill a bunker, there being more limiting factors than just the speed of the machine.

Figure 7.  Chipping the kau kau into the bunker

We knew from our Port Moresby experience that the silage would last at least 8 months.  From the time we chipped the first crop until the pigs arrived the period of storage would have been about 12 months so we tested some old silage (about 12 months old) on some village pigs.  Lester and Isidor mixed the silage (1.5kg) with some commercial finisher pellets (1.0 kg) and, with the permission of Lu, a local Obai man, they fed this mix to his 3 pigs.  The silage, although quite dark, smelled sweet.  The pigs consumed it willingly, but growth performance reflected the low protein level of the diet.  The average feed intake was 3.3 -4.0 kg from the beginning of the five week trial until it finished when the pigs were about 15 weeks of age and weighed about 36 kg.  The feed intake indicated that palatability was not an issue.  

Figure 8.  Lu's three pigs and a chicken consuming the silage feed mix

END.