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Papua New Guinea — Kimel Estate A

Kimel Estate was first established in 1974 by an Australian named Bobby Gibbs. It has since been transferred back to its traditional land owners, the Opais tribe. This estate is located in the very lush and scenic province of the Western Highlands in the Wahgi valley just 50 kilometres south of Mount Hagen, near a town called Banz. The Western Highlands is the largest coffee-producing province in PNG.

The estate’s altitude is approximately 1600 masl with some 620 hectares under production. Shade trees are used and the main coffee species in production are Mondonovo, Blue Mountain, Typica, Arusha, Caturra and Catimor. Although locally owned, the estate is managed by expatriates with extensive experience in coffee management.

Kimel Estate provides jobs for a permanent workforce of 432 people who are provided with bush housing on the estate and offered access to schooling and medical facilities for themselves and their families. Clean running water has been made available to the estate workers by way of a community project; on-going implementation is overseen by the management. Since the estate is located along the Kimel River (from which it derived its name), it has access to good, clean water for processing its crop. Some eco-friendly policies have also been introduced such as using the pulp as organic fertiliser as well as re-cycling water used during the wet process.