PNG economy born out of agriculture, Tomscoll says

Business

DEVELOPMENTS in the mining and LNG sector will come and go while agriculture will remain the industry for the future of the country, Agriculture and Livestock Minister, Tommy Tomscoll says.
He said PNG’s economy was born out of agriculture referred to as the planation economy.
He said the future for cocoa and coconut industry globally would grow due to supply demand in cocoa for chocolate, medicine, cosmetics. Tomscoll said by-products for coconut did go down for a while but people were slowly moving away from synthetic materials, back to organic products.
He said more than 80 per cent of the people lived in this sector and sustainability was the key to the future in this sector.
He urged officers in the agriculture sector to design sustainability programs to grow the sector.
He said advantages of the diminishing plantation economy include those that owned plantations were able to recruit labourers from other regions and production unit cost was low.
“Plantations have died due to increased production cost per unit and are no longer economically sustainable in the country today and in its place was the conception of small holders that has underpinned the growth of the industry,” he said.