The Prime Minister, Rui Maria de Araújo, accompanied by the Minister of State, Coordinating Minister of Economic Affairs and Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Estanislau da Silva, launched a coffee plantation rehabilitation programme, to increase production in Dukurai Village, Administrative Post of Letefoho, Municipality of Ermera, on October 21st, 2016.
The Prime Minister, on behalf of the Government, congratulated the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and the entire team of the Ministry, as well as farmers from the Dukurai Village, who made great efforts to rehabilitate 500 hectares of coffee. 350 of these hectares belong to the Municipality of Ermera and 150 to Liquiçá.
“Timor-Leste has a large coffee production area, which is not yielding good results. We have 6,019 hectares we want to improve. To diversify our economy, we have to produce a lot of coffee before we can sell it. It is a way for us to make money, because Timor Coffee is known worldwide and is highly rated in the USA, as it is an organic coffee [without chemicals]”, explained the Head of Government.
In turn, the Minister Estanislau da Silva recalled that coffee is not a recent production, it has been with us for a long time. And he stressed the need for a strategy to rehabilitate the coffee trees throughout the territory, replacing plantations.