Subsidise agriculture

CURRENTLY, our government is facing the constraints of creating employment opportunities for the influx of job seekers from universities, colleges, vocational training institutes and secondary schools.
The majority of the populations have been job seeking everywhere in the country, and the Government is turning a blind eye on this drastic issue.
The Government is not doing enough.
There are no sound investment opportunities created for investors, there is a lack of strategic alignment to boost local small-medium enterprises (SME) and a lack of support to local growing industries which results in high unemployment rate.
Now is the time for our government to seriously look into agriculture and start investing in it by subsidising the high cost of inputs.
The only way to start investing in agriculture is by subsidising agricultural inputs for farmers to increase production to meet the increasing demands in the local and offshore markets.
A price subsidy will increase the likelihood of farmers having more money and creating wealth for better living standard and overall economic prosperity and growth.
By then, the alignment of other bigger agendas in relation to agriculture can fall in, like exporting, import substitutes, downstream processing, etc.
Otherwise we cannot force people to go back to land.
The Government must step in to make it attractive for people to go back and farm their land.
A pull factor must be present in order for people to pay attention to it, simply subsidise the agricultural inputs.
Which means that if people know that any specific agriculture input like fertilisers, chemicals, seeds, tools and so on, is half the price of what they used to pay, then this becomes a pull factor for them to go back and farm their land.
It will also increase the production output of the existing farmers.
Additionally, it should result in a decrease in unemployment, rural-urban migration and hopefully a decrease in crime rates that we are currently facing.
The Government should know that, all Papua New Guineans are born agriculturists.
We don’t need to look for jobs.
Help us create our own jobs.

J Dingua
Ongs Nem