New plan for agriculture sector

COMMODITY board heads along with Department of Agriculture and Livestock (DAL) and partner World Bank, recently took part in a two-day consultative workshop in Port Moresby to finalise the framework of the new National Agriculture Development Plan (NADP) 2024-2033.
NADP review team lead consultant Dr Eric Omuru said the team was engaged by DAL and Ministry of Agriculture to develop the NADP sector plan because the last plan, NADP 2007-2016, had lapsed.
“After the plan lapsed, no plan was made until this year through the direction given by Prime Minister’s Office to Minister for Agriculture that we need to get the sector plan in order because the Government’s focus was now on the agriculture sector and also the renewable sector,” he said.
Omuru said the team of experts where put together by DAL to review the last plan, NADP 2007-2016, as a lot of things in that plan were still useful even though the plan did not achieve the expected outcomes.
He said that from the information and report gathered, they would use them and go out to talk to stakeholders like farmers, provincial governments and people who participated in agriculture in each of the four regions.
“This workshop is part of the process where we will talk stakeholders but we felt that we need to start with the in-house sector,” Omuru said.