Arrival of calorimeters in Vanuatu timely: Tumukon

The Director of Biosecurity Vanuatu, Timothy Tumukon says the arrival of calorimeters in Vanuatu is timely.

He says in Vanuatu these machines are overdue and should’ve been here ten years ago.

“We should’ve had these machines ten years ago when we had issues with kava that were exported to Germany and Germany was telling us that it was having issues with lever toxicity because if we were not testing our kava exports ten years ago to make sure that our kava exports were noble kava only,” he told Kizzy Kalsakau, host of 96 BuzzFM’s Vanuatu Nightly News program.

“Yes, it is timely to receive these machines in Vanuatu because a lot of our kava that is exported, people point fingers to Vanuatu because we have more varieties than other Pacific island countries.

“We have 12/13 noble types that are good varieties while the rest are either medicinal kava, two-day kava or wild kava,” he added.

“So it is a challenge for us that farmers are preparing only good kava for export and to verify that you need the calorimetric tests.”

PHAMA, the Pacific Horticulture and Agricultural Market Access Program financed by Australia and New Zealand will donate the calorimeters to the Agriculture Department and Biosecurity Vanuatu and the Food Technology Centre.

The significant of those machines is that they are going to help determine the type of kava to be exported, Tumukon explained.

In November 2015, Parliament passed an amendment to the Kava Act to give authority to the directors of agriculture and biosecurity to manage the quality of kava that is exported and also traded locally, that is kava that is consumed at the nakamals.

“But firstly we are trying to clean up the export sector of kava.

“So these machines have been purchased to be given to the government and also to some exporters to test the types of kava that are being prepared for export.”

To use the machines, the kava that that is prepared for export is pound into powder and then a solution is extracted from the powder and that solution is put through the machine.

The machine reads the wave length of the solution and it gives a reading on that wave length and there is a predetermined range of wave lengths that provides some assurance to the exporter that the kava is either a noble kava or another type of kava.

“Now, under the Amended Kava Act all other use of words such as wild kava, or medicinal kava is not used anymore.

They all fall under one category, “narafala kava”.

“We have only two categories of kava now – noble kava is what we are encouraging for trading, and narafala kava. And the calorimeters can read the wave length of noble kava and give you an assurance that your kava that you have prepared for export is noble kava.

“Or it will give you a reading of other wave lengths that can tell you that it is not good kava.

“And so we will determine consignments based on the samples that are collected and analyzed, using the calorimeter.”