Agricultural potential still untapped

 PAPUA New Guineans have worked the land for their subsistence over thousands of years. 

The people who first inhabited the island of New Guinea developed methods to till and irrigate their soil and to live off the bounty while hunting and gathering was still the most common method of surviving for people in other parts of the world. 

It makes sense that one of the leading industries in a developing economy such as PNG’s should be in the agricultural sector.  

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill told a large group of farmers and villagers at a cocoa project at Mutzing Station in Markham District, Morobe, last Friday that agriculture was indeed the backbone of the country and the people needed to remember that. 

He urged the people to invest in their land and to generate an income from the growth of market produce and cash crops. He said agriculture, which was often neglected, was in essence what the people were all about. 

But with a booming mining sector over the past quarter century along with existence of oil and hydro-carbons, many have lost sight of what the land can produce, instead choosing to focus on what can be extracted from its depths.

While the revenue from gold, copper and nickel is significant and the reserves of gas seem abundant and seemingly inexhaustible, this wealth will not endure simply because they are non-renewable.  

At independence the nation had among its chief exports coffee, copra, cocoa and tea. These cash crops were one of the first means for the people to make their own revenue and take part in the local economy.

The fishing industry is another area where the country gains revenue from but in terms of having the most involvement by the people – agriculture, and its related industries, is the obvious foundation on which this country’s economy should be based on. 

Other agricultural products have since increased their presence and importance. Sugar and oil palm are now two of the country’s major industries. Although sugar is produced for domestic sale other industries have shot off the Ramu cane fields. A small beef industry is up and running, with cattle being tended to supply the local market. 

This livestock opportunity is not lost on another major oil palm producer in West New Britain.

Some cottage industries have tried to take off but have met natural deaths. The growth of pyrethrum was once mooted as a cash crop that could have significant effect on the rural communities, particularly in the Highlands region. 

In the late 1990s and early 2000s the growth and production of vanilla beans became a lucrative enterprise after the world’s leading producer, Madagascar, had most of its crop wiped out by disease and bad weather. That opportunity saw many growers in PNG bank in on the high prices. 

The Highlands provinces and Morobe are seen as the potential food bowls of the country. The majority of sweet potato eaten in the country originates from the Highlands.

Agriculture has taken a backseat to the rise of the mining industry and the extraction of other valuable resources. The focus of governments over the past two decades has been on the strength of the commodities taken from deep within the land. This has happened to the detriment of agriculture and this attitude has in turn caused agriculture to fade somewhat into irrelevance. The truth is the government should be doing more to support local agriculture because this is the only industry that can directly benefit the rural communities.

While gold and copper can be taken and a royalty paid to the state and the landowners the harsh reality is that very few actually take part in the transaction.

Through agriculture the people literally hold their own destinies in their hands.

There needs to be a paradigm shift back to the land as it was seen in pre-independence times, when agriculture was seen as the bedrock that the economy could be built on. That is no longer the case. O’Neill should push for more land to be opened up and for more Papua New Guineans to be actively be involved in the development of their country through their land.