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PNG’s NADP is ‘badly flawed’ IT IS common knowledge that development of agriculture has been poorly managed over the past three decades, although there have been some success stories.The greatest successes have been the ability of tens of thousands of smallholders to capitalise on crops such as coffee, copra, cocoa and, in more recent times, vanilla and other spices. Smallholders have survived and prospered, from time to time, despite the deterioration of the nation’s infrastructure and administrative bodies that have been less than supportive. Their fortunes have largely been dependent on the levels of world commodity prices. It is not surprising that there has been some fanfare, but arguably not much, over the recent launch of a 10-year agricultural development plan, the first of its kind for Papua New Guinea. It is unlikely that many people have been able to see the original two-volume report that makes up the thrust of this plan because the reports are a rare commodity. Since taking a look at these volumes, Bottom Line has been wondering whether agricultural ministers involved in its development, and its launch, have actually read these documents and whether they have personal opinions on their value and viability. How many department heads, outside of agriculture, have perused this landmark report? Has the National Executive Council received a detailed briefing on goals and targets and how these goals will be achieved? What everyone knows is that the National Government is supposed to budget K100 million a year to implement the plan, though the 2008 budget shows implementation is clearly lagging. Because of unspent funds in the relevant trust accounts, a top-up fund of K28 million was provided in the 2008 budget. An additional K80 million had been allotted to the sector in recent supplementary budgets. Bottom Line is of the view that the National Agricultural Development Plan (2007-2016) on the broad theme, “Growing the Economy through Agriculture”, is a badly flawed document. This is not surprising because the capacity of the Department of Agriculture and Livestock has been badly run-down over the years. And to protect its turf, it does not look as though the vital cross-fertilisation of ideas has taken place with the Department of National Planning, Treasury, the National Agricultural Research Institute and the National Research Institute. There has apparently been collaboration with the United Nations-affiliated Food and Agricultural Organisation, but there is reason to doubt the ability of that organisation to provide meaningful input for agricultural development in a Pacific Island nation like PNG. In a forthcoming article in PNG Yearbook 2008, which is soon to be published, John Sowei of the NRI, currently completing his doctorate at UPNG, says FAO estimates for PNG agricultural output and of land available for agriculture “are both grossly in error”. The DAL would have been much better off looking for expert advisers and consultants within the Asian Development Bank or among Asian countries that have done similar planning. The NADP is strong on recommendations for various feasibility studies and the need for even more bureaucratic set-ups or strengthening of current organisations even though the past history of many is dismal. The case of the Copra Marketing Board has been discussed previously. It seems the ambitious targets the NADP has set for various agricultural commodities is nothing more than a wish list, not greatly different to those in the past that suggested PNG should, for example, double coffee production to two million bags. The plan is actually a bit more modest. It suggests coffee output should grow to 1.5 million bags in the next five to 10 years. Really? If DAL was scrapped tomorrow and the K100 million agricultural budget rescinded, it is more than likely coffee output would grow at least 50% to 1.5 million bags in 10 years time. Recent supplementary budget allocations to the transport sector, which would open up areas affected by deteriorating infrastructure, could guarantee that outcome. Over the last few years, a number of experts have suggested that 30% of coffee production is not exported because markets are inaccessible or because of law and order issues. The architects of the NADP have paid little or no attention to the importance of private investment. The plan is drawn up on the seemingly flawed premise that Government spending, on its own accord, would generate the proposed agricultural revolution. What the nation really needs is greatly increased private sector investments, both from domestic and international sources. But this is a subject that received virtually no attention in the NADP. Some discussion with groups such as the Kimbe-headquartered New Britain Palm Oil would have thrown up ideas about how more foreign investment could be attracted. Another issue not been adequately dealt with is the whole question of communal land and land ownership. Some plantations could be opened up quickly and prosper almost immediately if tribal differences affecting them could be resolved. If the nation is to encourage investment in agriculture, access to land on equitable terms that would benefit the investors and landowners is imperative. What are the critical elements of land reform that need to be tackled? Are there other potential avenues that will enable communal land to be opened up to domestic and foreign investors? If the Government is serious about agriculture, it needs to quickly put together a taskforce to reassess the NADP and to come up with realistic goals as well as annual implementation plans and targets. Otherwise, optimal investment and growth within the agricultural will just not take place and the notional K100 million budget for agriculture will either not be spent, or be misspent, this year.
Hypocrisy on the high seas? By PETER SINGERTHIRTY years ago, Australian vessels, with the Government’s blessing, killed sperm whales off the West Australian coast. Last month, Australia led international protests against Japan’s plan to kill 50 humpback whales. Japan, under mounting pressure, announced that it would suspend the plan for a year or two. The change in public opinion about whaling has been dramatic, and not only in Australia. Greenpeace began the protests against Australian whaling, and the Government appointed Sydney Frost, a retired judge, to head an inquiry into the practice. As a concerned Australian and a philosophy professor working on the ethics of our treatment of animals, I made a submission. I did not argue that whaling should stop because whales are endangered. I knew that many expert ecologists and marine biologists would make that claim. Instead, I argued that whales are social mammals with big brains, capable of enjoying life and of feeling pain – and not only physical pain, but very likely also distress at the loss of one of their group. Whales cannot be humanely killed – they are too large, and even with an explosive harpoon, it is difficult to hit the whale in the right spot. Moreover, whalers do not want to use a large amount of explosive, because that would blow the whale to pieces, while the whole point is to recover valuable oil or flesh. So harpooned whales typically die slowly and painfully. Causing suffering to innocent beings without an extremely weighty reason for doing so is wrong. If there were some life-or-death need that humans could meet only by killing whales, perhaps the ethical case against it could be countered. But there is no essential human need that requires us to kill whales. Everything we get from whales can be obtained without cruelty elsewhere. Thus, whaling is unethical. Frost agreed. He said that there could be no doubt that the methods used to kill whales were inhumane – he even described them as “most horrible”. He also mentioned “the real possibility that we are dealing with a creature which has a remarkably developed brain and a high degree of intelligence”. The conservative government of then Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser accepted his recommendation that whaling be stopped, and the country soon became an anti-whaling nation. While Japan has suspended its plan to kill humpback whales, its Japanese whaling fleet will still kill about 1,000 other whales, mostly smaller minke whales. Japan justifies its whaling as “research”, because the International Whaling Commission’s rules allow member nations to kill whales for such purposes. But the research seems to be aimed at building a scientific case for a resumption of commercial whaling; so, if whaling is unethical, then the research itself is both unnecessary and unethical. Japan says that it wants the discussion of whaling to be carried out calmly, on the basis of scientific evidence, without “emotion”. The Japanese think that humpback whale numbers have increased sufficiently for the killing of 50 to pose no danger to the species. On this narrow point, they might be right. But no amount of science can tell us whether or not to kill whales. Indeed, Japan’s desire to continue to kill whales is no less motivated by “emotion” than environmentalists’ opposition to it. Eating whales is not necessary for the health or better nutrition of the Japanese. It is a tradition that they wish to continue, presumably because some Japanese are emotionally attached to it. The Japanese do have one argument that is not so easily dismissed. They claim that Western countries object to whaling because, for them, whales are a special kind of animal, as cows are for Hindus. Western nations, the Japanese say, should not try to impose their cultural beliefs on them. The best response to this argument is that the wrongness of causing needless suffering to sentient beings is not culturally specific. It is, for example, one of the first precepts of one of Japan’s major ethical traditions, Buddhism. But Western nations are in a weak position to make this response, because they inflict so much unnecessary suffering on animals. The Australian government strongly opposes whaling, yet it permits the killing of millions of kangaroos each year – a slaughter that involves a great deal of animal suffering. The same can be said of various forms of hunting in other countries, not to mention the vast amount of animal suffering caused by factory farms. Whaling should stop because it brings needless suffering to social, intelligent animals capable of enjoying their own lives. But against the Japanese charge of cultural bias, Western countries will have little defence until they address the needless animal suffering in their own backyards. – Project Syndicate l Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, is the author of the seminal book Animal Liberation and, with Jim Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat. He is also the author of Practical Ethics, Pushing Time Away and The Moral of the Story.
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