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Efforts under way to revive Samoa's coffee industry

The first was the high level of unemployment, and the second was the amount of land available for farming.Since that trip he has teamed up with Nabi Saleh, founder of the Gloria Jeans coffee franchise, to revive Samoa's coffee bean industry.The aim is to provide agriculture jobs and business for Samoans.Presenter:Geraldine CouttsSpeaker: John Williams, Australian Nationals senatorWILLIAMS: Went there for Christmas last year, love Samoa, love the people and my wife and I had a wonderful time. And we actually went around for a four or five hour drive with Palusalue, the opposition leader. And I said to Palu what are you doing with the land and basically Geraldine the land isn't producing much at all. And hence we knew of the high unemployment, we knew of the need of export income required for Samoa. So on return I met up with Nabi Saleh and said to Nabi could you help me help these people? He said yes, gladly.COUTTS: Now why coffee in particular is it that you're targeting to get Samoans to grow?WILLIAMS: Well Geraldine about 12 months ago a representative from a major coffee firm had approached me saying look they were concerned about the supply of coffee, the world population growing, and of course the climate there in Samoa is perfect for growing coffee, and now that we've seen the land, the good basalt soil, it's sort of all adding up to a huge potential to be a big producer of coffee.