Priorities set on agriculture

 By MALUM NALU

MILNE Bay is putting food security, tree crops, and livestock on top of its agriculture agenda for this year, according to provincial agriculture advisor James Duks.

He told The National in Alotau that Milne Bay, like other provinces in Papua New Guinea, had subsistence-based agriculture, however, this had its problems.

“They just produce enough to eat and not enough to generate extra cash,” Duks said.

“They’re actually dictated by their cultural values and a lot of attention is put on the yam crop.

“But they have experienced long periods where they do not have much food.”

Food security, Duks said, was top of the agriculture agenda.

“The food security component takes care of food production,” he said.

“We are riding on rice as a test crop, however, we’re not overlooking the traditional foods such as yams, taro, and bananas.

“We encourage people to grow these food crops but they must also look at rice because the traditional foods cannot be stored for long periods.”

While oil palm may be the major agricultural crop for Milne Bay, Duks said this was the domain of big companies, and the province was looking at coffee, cocoa, and copra.

“We’re looking at the other tree crops because that’s where the masses of the people are,” he said.

“We are looking at rehabilitating cocoa in the province.

“For coffee, we’re looking at the high altitude areas.

“The other cash crop we’re looking at is coconuts, where we’re developing a seed garden of resistant varieties because in Madang, you have the Bogia Coconut Syndrome, a virus that attacks the crown of the tree and kills the coconut.”

Milne Bay is also looking at a bustling cattle industry, as well as goats, ducks, and village chickens.

“We’re still waiting for our 1,000 cattle which we ordered through the Livestock Development Corporation,” Duks said.

“We’re also doing goats, ducks, and village chickens.”

 because they complement food security.”