Papua New Guinea – Trip Report
Travelling nearly 7,000 miles to reach the highlands of Papua New Guinea is a commitment, a commitment Covoya’s Senior Trader and Sourcing Director, Ian Kluse, has made several times over the last 16 years. The relationships that Ian has developed over those years have become increasingly important as we expand our presence even though PNG coffee exports have been waning.
PNG coffee exports peaked in 1998 at 1.4 million bags but were nearly cut in half by 2002 due to historically low prices. While exports have occasionally exceeded 1 million bags since then, they remain erratic and hit a 40 year low of 650,000 bags in 2020. At least 90% of coffee in PNG is grown by smallholders on less than 1 hectare and these farmers, who are dividing their land and efforts between subsistence and cash crops, can be highly sensitive to “return on investment.”
We compared the income from coffee with that from sweet potato and found sweet potato to be superior. We are no longer interested in growing coffee and have removed it. Sweet potato supports us now.” -Kristie Benjamin, Asaro Valley west of Goroka, 2017
In May of 2024, Ian returned to PNG to visit with suppliers and the sourcing and quality assurance teams we share as part of OFI International in the city of Goroka.
After 30 hours of travel, the one-hour flight from the capital city of Port Moresby on the southern coast to Mount Hagen in the Western Highlands feels like less than a hop. Named after a nearby extinct volcano (and the volcano named after a German colonial officer who never set eyes on it), the city of Mount Hagan began its life as a simple airstrip in 1934. Today, you might occasionally find coffee drying on land inside the Mount Hagen (Kagamuga) Airport, parchment from nearby Kuta Mill and Ian’s first stop.
Bryan Leahy owns both Kuta Mill and Korgua Estate and is Covoya’s primary supplier of PNG specialty coffee. Korgua was established by Bryan’s father and was the first coffee farm in the Western Highlands. Bryan’s father and uncles were the first outsiders to explore the highland region in the early 1930’s while searching for gold, and they built the first airstrip at Mount Hagen. The Leahy name remains inexorably tied to the region.
Bryan Leahy
In addition to coffee grown on Korgua Estate, Kuta Mill processes coffee purchased directly from two dozen farms known in PNG as “Block Holders.” These are farms of 5-20 hectares in size, which is large in the highlands. Following independence in 1975, large plantations, abandoned by colonial owners, were divided into “blocks” of 20 Hectares and then some of those were divided further. Bryan Leahy’s relationship with these Western Highland Block Holders goes back many years and they are collectively the source of Covoya’s Kuta Mill coffee. Although the Mount Hagen region has struggled through tribal warfare in the past, Kuta Mill is considered neutral ground by all so farmers securely deliver coffee to the mill.
Like coffee farmers throughout this part of the world, moisture is a significant challenge for PNG highland producers. Kuta Mill recently installed two 10-ton Pinhalense dryers to increase the volume of the mill while helping to decrease processing times. Kuta also sun dries coffee, renting land from the airport next door when needed to lay out tarps, which they call “sails.”
Bebes Sero
After visiting Bryan Leahy and Kuta Mill, Ian headed 100 miles southeast into the Eastern Highlands and the city of Goroka, where the Covoya/OFI quality control and procurement team is located and building a new large wet mill just outside of town. Because Covoya/OFI in PNG is willing and able to purchase parchment at any moisture level and finish the drying ourselves, we have access to a wide variety and volume of coffee. Farmers are paid sooner and spend less time processing. The OFI processing facilities in the port town of Lae are only 185 miles away, which is “in the neighborhood” for PNG.
We also use an open market model where anyone can bring us coffee, meaning the farmers themselves as well as aggregators who collect coffee from very remote regions. It is here in the Eastern Highlands that Ian sources Covoya’s PNG Organic.
One of Covoya’s long-standing relationships is with Bebes Sero whose plantation is in the town of Kainantu, east of Goroka. Established in the 1968, this 38-hectare plantation is an unusually large coffee farm for PNG. Heavy on shade and light on pruning, coffee grows in forest-like conditions and is processed at Bebes Washing Station. Bebes also buys and mills coffee from local smallholders.
In addition to these long-standing relationships, Covoya’s growing presence and increasing access to coffee infrastructure in PNG will allow us to introduce new coffees and a wider variety from PNG.
