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FOOD production in the country stands at 1%
and this is a problem as it does not match the current population growth
rate of 3%, Governor-General Sir Paulias Matane said yesterday.
He raised this warning when he officiated at the Gazelle forum with the
theme “Growing PNG’s future with the national agriculture development
plan” at the University of Vudal’s Kairak Hall in East New Britain.
He said population growth in the country was at its highest in the
Pacific and questioned why people were not growing enough food.
“We attend many workshops and seminars of food production, but we don’t
seem to put to use what we have learnt from these training sessions and
the challenge is for us to make things happen,” Sir Paulias said.
He said the NADP was an important policy document that was targeted to
propel the country and translate the soul of the medium-term development
strategy (MTDS) launched last year.
“A good majority of the households is still concerned with food security
and food abundance and this is an essential concern and the planners
must pay attention to,” Sir Paulias said.
However, he said while our NADP was concentrating on solid food, it must
not forget that liquid food such as water was also a primary concern.
“There was a major absence of that in the current NADP on tackling water
issues in PNG as research had shown that there was a direct connection
to human’s health, growth, food we eat and the water we drink,” Sir
Paulias said.
He said NADP must pursue the conservation, protection and wise use of
water in the plan as it was also a vital food item.
Sir Paulias said for far too long in the context of food stability,
water had been omitted in our planning and especially in the big
island-nation like PNG, “we could afford to be careless but still have
abundance of water”.
 
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