Page 12 - Islands Business March 2023

Research for Development of
an Indigenous Nut Industry

By James Laraki
The National Agricul-
tural Research Institute
(NARI) of Papua New
Guinea (PNG) is taking
a whole value chain ap-
proach to developing an
agricultural industry of an Sorting nut – local growers going through the
indigenous nut common- process sorting fresh nuts
ly called galip from the
tree Canarium indicum
by focusing on gaining a
better understanding of
the opportunities for pri-
vate sector participation.
With over 20 years re-
search and development
work on galip nut, NARI
is working closely with
the Galip Nut Company
Galip Nut1 – Drying process of the galip nut
(GNC), to operate a me-
dium scale galip process-
ing facility and engage in
the promotion of galip as
a potential future industry Forest tree nut kernels, proudly harvested from
for PNG. The GNC is a the Canarium indicum tree. Cracked, hand peeled,
virtual research entity es- dried & packaged in East New Britain.
tablished in 2014 by the
Institute to explore oppor-
Galip Products - processed galip products on
tunities for private sector display at the official launching of GNC
participation to develop
the galip nut industry. The project is based out of NARI’s Is-
land Regional Centre at Keravat, East New Britain Province.
The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Re-
search (ACIAR) has been very generous in its steadfast sup-
port to NARI with over 20 years of research partnerships with
several Australian universities to develop an alternative cash
crop for PNG.
Apart from PNG, galip is also indigenous to Solomon Is-
lands, Vanuatu and the West Papua region. It has been culti-
vated for thousands of years and is important in the diet of the
indigenous people in lowland areas. It is an excellent agro-
forestry species and the nuts have high nutritional value, is
organically grown and harvested in a sustainable manner
where the rainforests and environment is conserved.
GNC’s current business operations model is tailored to en-
gage local growers from East New Britain to supply nuts to
the Keravat facility for processing. Processing of nuts takes
almost two weeks that involves de-pulping, drying and the
cracking of kernel. Presently GNC has three product variants:
roasted, peeled and natural. These come in different sizes
and mainly targeting the food and catering market. City Phar-
macy Group is currently the sole distributor of the products
and is sold in Port Moresby and Kokopo only. GNC hopes
to increase production to other provinces in the New Guinea
Islands region as well as the mainland PNG and at the same
time establish its niche market both in PNG, in the region and
globally. This prospect has a bright future judging from the
way the roasted galip nuts were snatched up at the recent
World Expo in Dubai. www.galipnuts.net

12 Islands Business, March 2023
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