New strategy is good but needs to be monitored, says official

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THE introduction of the e-agriculture strategy is a good initiative but it should be properly monitored, says Rural Industries Council of PNG chairman Sir Brown Bai.
Bai told The National that the quality of services delivered and the simplicity of the information using the e-agriculture strategy were significant to farmers.
“The change is necessary but you have to drive it very
carefully and with absolute certainty,” he said.
“It depends on everybody working together because there is a need for the inter-disciplinary sectors to work together to make sure that our farmers are getting the right information.
“The harnesses for agriculture development is not dependent on agriculture alone. We need to make sure that other issues are being addressed together with these kinds of initiatives.”
Bai said farmers must be fully conversant with the system and how they could get that information.
“I’m always talking agriculture and I will always talk agriculture. That’s the backbone of PNG.
“It is very good that we have initiatives like e-agriculture but we must bear in mind that we are talking about Papua New Guineans who are very sensitive.
“This is one reason why initially our extension services worked very well, it was a face to face discussion. This one we are talking about electronic it’s a different ball game altogether.”