All talk, no action on boosting agriculture

Letters, Normal
Source:

The National, Wednesday February 26th, 2014

 AGRICULTURE is our most important sector. 

In  Oct 2013, Minister for Agriculture Tommy Tomscoll publicly declared that he wanted the government  and  the country to focus on this sector, saying that “PNG is an agriculture country,  not an economy based on mining, oil and gas”. 

We  have also heard Tomscoll saying that the O’Neill government was serious about boosting agricultural production, but what we never hear is how this is actually going to happen. 

We have an agriculture minister who is all about big ideas and grand plans, and yet, have we seen any change or improvements? 

Last week, we heard him talking about Joko Tjandra’s Central rice project, where investors are asking for a monopoly on rice, pushing its price up for us while greedy companies profit. 

This is not the change the country needs. 

The minister has managed to open a new copra mill in Buka, but apart from that, we seem to have an agriculture minister and department that do nothing but create schemes and make plans. 

Enough with the schemes, ideas and planning. 

Let us get down to real action, activities and agricultural development that is practical, on-going and that we can do. 

Doing this, we can make our country  great and support the people at the same time, rather than sending  more profits to companies via schemes. 

When exactly will the cabinet wake up and hold the minister accountable for his many broken promises? 

 

Kila Vele

Port Moresby