NARI gears up for show

By MALUM NALU
Bubia along the Highlands Highway outside Lae will come alive on May 9 and 10 with the National Agricultural Research Institute’s annual Agriculture Innovations Show.
It will be the biggest event for agriculture in 2018 and promises to bring together the whole gamut of people involved in the sector from around the country.
More so in that the Government is putting greater emphasis on agriculture as confirmed by its 2018 Budget allocation to the sector.
It’s an event that NARI director Dr Sergie Bang is eagerly looking forward to.
“We are looking forward to this next innovations show on May 9 and 10,” he tells me.
“The innovations show is becoming increasingly funded by the private sector and other partners who are coming in.”
Bang’s predecessor Dr Raghunath Ghodake started the innovations show back in 2007 and it has since grown.
“It started as a field day, and over the last three to four years, has changed into an agriculture innovations show which involves all partners, not just NARI.
“We have put our sponsorship and the big supporters have been Trukai, Mainland Holdings and Zenag.
“Trukai has taken out the platinum sponsorship of K50,000 and have been a strong partner.
“They have also come in a big way to demonstrate their products, particularly their research they have been doing on rice, and inter-cropping with beans and other such crops.
“This year they will again be having a big demonstration of rice with beans and other crops.
“We have also signed an MOA (memorandum of agreement) with Trukai to look at the economics of rice production, to see whether cost of rice production and marketing can be reduced, so that rice can be an economic and feasible crop to grow.
“Right now, we are being told that rice cannot be grown in the country, economically.
“This research will try to show us where we can bring the costs down.
“Is it in the production area, price of fertilisers, pesticides, machinery used, or is it in the processing and market value chain where costs can be reduced.”
The objective is to reduce costs so that rice can be grown commercially and feasibly, so that across the country, we can grow rice and market it through the Trukai supply chain.”
NARI is also partnering with Trukai, under a project by the Australia-funded PNG Incentive Fund, to test solar-driven rice mills.
“It’s being piloted in the Morobe province,” Bang says.
“We are going to take these solar rice mills out to remote districts of Morobe where rice is grown.
“This rice will be milled and can then be packaged and sold for local consumption.
“As supply picks up, it can be sold through the Trukai marketing system.
“We’re looking at both upland rice and paddy rice.”
Bang says NARI was set up by the Government to serve not only smallholder farmers, but also those who were moving from subsistent to commercial agriculture.
“We are trying, at all our regional centres, to reach out to these farmers,” he adds.
“As they come to us, we go to them.”
Bang also tells me that NARI is trying to change its mandate to focus not only on research, but also on development, which means it will be known as National Agricultural Research and Development Institute (NARDI).
“Rather than just having a research mandate, we will also have a development mandate,” he explains.
“That will enable us more to reach partners and measure development impact, because we will have a development section.
“In the current stage, we are more a research institution.
“We have 29 technologies we have released.
“We work through our contacts who are in extension and development.”
Bang says NARI works closely with agriculture officers at both national and provincial level, non-government organisations and research groups.
These NGOs include Caritas, Lutheran Development Service and Care International, among others.
“They all come into the picture, especially during the 2015 drought,” Bang says.
“They have been working in partnership with us to reach the rural people and rehabilitate their agriculture.
“We also have resource centres, through the European Union-funded rural economic development project in the Highlands, and in the lowlands.
“In the past EU has focused on resource centres.
“We have established up to 20 resource centres around the country where we put NARI Toktoks (newsletters), extension, CDs and other information.
“Training is also conducted, especially on improved crop materials, which are multiplied in those resource centres.
“Our livestock feeding systems are also demonstrated with village chickens and goats so that farmers can come in and have a look.”
All that, and more, will be on show at Bubia on May 9 and 10.
See you there.