Development means different things

THE word development means different things to different people.
For us in Central it surely means the changes that are necessary to allow us to have the lifestyles we want in today’s world – we cannot go back to the past and live as subsistence farmers or fishermen.
Our young people want and deserve more.
However, we can look to these traditional skills and our natural resources, including our people, to see how they can be best used to achieve real development at a village level.
Central, like much of PNG, is not short of land, it is not short of skilled and educated people and it is not short of natural resources.
We just have to find the best way to utilise them.
With the huge market of Port Moresby sitting right on our doorstep, Central should have an advantage over other provinces in the country.
But are we using this advantage? I would say that by and large no, we are not, the main thing that we are supplying the national capital is skilled people.
We have a Department of Agriculture & Livestock, we have access to national and international NGO’s
Let’s use them to identify what agricultural activity suits our particular villages.
We cannot be negative all the time, let’s be positive and look forward for what could be done.
With a relatively small investment by Government we could make Central the bread basket for Port Moresby.
Agriculture means development!

Philomena Kassman
4 Central 25