Marketing biggest challenge, says official

MARKETING is one of the biggest challenges in the country’s agriculture sector as well as tackling some of the new changes and opportunities, an official says.
Executive director of the Institute of National Affairs Paul Barker made this comment in a recent dialogue on “reinvigorating the agriculture sector in PNG”.
“We have to recognise that and we’ve got to be facilitating opportunities for farmers,” he said.
“You’ve got some very good land and you’ve got some very poor land.
“It does not mean you can’t grow things on the poor land.
“And so, agriculture has to be able to change, you got to be able to assist those farmers.”
Barker said unfortunately, over the years, there had been directions of increasing cocoa and coffee production but without any relationships to the constraints that the farmers were actually facing.
“Those constraints relate to basic transport and accessibility,” he said.
“But we must go back to the beginning, what is the farmer doing?
“You might want to get a decent return from your effort.
“If you’re not going to get a decent return from your effort, why would you do that? You would want to try something else if you can.
“So we got to recognise that it’s sort of business and try to address those different constraints.”
Barker said much could be done to safeguard the sector as well as assisting farmers in being able to produce, adapt and being able to diversify which was crucial.
“On the production side, we can massively increase production,” he said.
“Farmers get extension people who actually have practical skills, who can fire up the farmers by running practical sessions.
“That can happen at the production end, tackling also those insect pests and other threats.”