Coffee CPPC in Padawan ready within 3 years, says Dr Jerip

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Dr Jerip plants a coffee sapling during the function.

KUCHING (Nov 13): A collection, processing and packaging centre (CPPC) to be set up in Padawan here will be ready within three years to support the growing coffee planting in the area, says Mambong incumbent Datuk Dr Jerip Susil.

He said this was one of ways to make Mambong constituency a coffee-growing belt, adding it had gain the support of Ministry of Agriculture, Native Land and Regional Development, Agriculture Department as well as various associations whose members are coffee planters in various villages in the Padawan area.

“They (coffee planters) have organised themselves under various associations with the aim of planting coffee, and we provide them training through the Agriculture Community Outreach Programme (AgriCOP).

“After that, the Agriculture Department will provide them with funds, coffee saplings and farming inputs such as fertilisers,” he said when met by reporters at Padawan sub-district office in Bayor near here here yesterday, after presenting school uniform vouchers to students of 11 schools in his constituency.

With the growing number of coffee planters in the Padawan area, Dr Jerip said there would be no less than half a million coffee trees planted in the villages by now.

He said that planting coffee would not affect the environment as there is no need to clear or burn a wide area to plant the saplings.

“We don’t have to worry about carbon emissions (due to open burning),” he added.