Agriculture sector vital, Agiru
I congratulate Southern Highlands Governor Anderson Agiru and his government for passing the 2008 budget appropriation Bill.
It was passed without much debate as the LLG presidents were not present in the provincial assembly.
All in all, the budget was commended by most of the assembly members but I just want to make few comments.
I am one of the frustrated farmers who believe in agriculture as a backbone of any developed or developing country.
The Agiru government has made a big mistake by not giving agriculture development much attention.
Southern Highlands should seriously think about investing money from non-renewable resources into renewable and sustainable resources (development), especially agriculture.
We are now enjoying good revenue from oil and gas but we must remember that they are non-renewable resources and will run out one day.
We should be thinking about agriculture as one of the province’s revenue base in the long run.
We have enough land favourable for agriculture development in the province.
One of the major components of agriculture development we should be focusing on is the extension programme.
We should provide enough funds to the Provincial Agriculture and Livestock Division and the Commerce Divisions so that they will be able to assist farmers to go into cash and food crop production and marketing as well as livestock.
With this assistance, we may be able to produce better quality crops and livestock to meet the markets’ demands and conditions.

Imbo Keri, Mendi
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