Agriculture ‘backbone of the economy’

THE agriculture sector remains the backbone of the Papua New Guinea’s economy, providing the livelihood for the majority of the population, although the economy has diversified, says Institute of National Affairs (INA) executive director Paul Barker.
Barker said agriculture would play an important role in ensuring that PNG’s economic and employment future was secured and that the country became a major agricultural and food producer domestically and in the region.
He said, however, extensive areas in the country were relatively infertile or too steep for commercial farming.
“The population is also growing fast, with growing land pressure in parts of the country, as well as the challenges of growing urbanisation and limited formal sector employment opportunities, weak governance and a relatively short and rather unsatisfactory history of investment in infrastructure and human resource development.”
Barker said this was worsened by widespread and growing corruption and poor use and limited accountability over public funds.
“Clearly, this also applies to supposed renewable resources, such as forestry and some fisheries and other marine resources which have been widely treated as an infinite resources but extracted in an unsustainable and damaging manner, with repeated harvests well within the period for regrowth or population recovery, or using seriously destructive.