Java Beans.
p. 46 · Read in the full issue
Growth of Trade Between Papua and Australia.
WE have had further enquiries from Papuan planters in connection with the production of Java or Kratok beans, which grow prolifically in tlio Territory.
These beans, it is understood, aie being offered to banana and sugar planters in Queensland and nortnern New South Wales, as a satisfactory substitute for Mauritius beans, which are imported from Fiji and elsewhere for use in the Australian plantations as a green manure. We are informed by the' Colonial Sugar Refining Co. that the average price paid, f.o.b. Suva, for Mauritius beans, for the purpose stated, is £25 per ton. The cost of shipment to Queensland ports is heavy, owing to the necessity for transhipment at Sydney.
Freight from Suva to Sydney is 55/per ton.
On these figures, it is apparent that the business of producing these beans in Papua has possibilities. We under stand one Papuan planter has already made a substantial contract for the supply of the beans to Australia and that he has already shipped consider able quantities.