Taking back PNG via agriculture

Graduate journalist finds a place in farming and food processing

By MALUM NALU
ALOTAU, and Milne Bay, have been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately because of the exploits of criminal Tommy Baker and his gang.
Baker and co have shattered the peace and tranquility of the beautiful town and province, famous for its tourism and hospitality, and friendly peace-loving people.
Unperturbed, on the other hand of the spectrum, is a group of young Milne Bay people devoted to agriculture-based small to medium enterprises (SMEs) who are showing to Alotau and Milne Bay that crime does not pay.
One of them is Daisy Leon Parascos, who together with her partner Harold Taylor, produce Milne Bay tumeric powder, spice powder and pepper products, and rural farmer training through their SME Palm’s Comfort Cultivates.
The brave journalist-cum-farmer proudly asserts that she is “taking Back PNG through agriculture” in line with the vision of Prime Minister James Marape.
A delegation led by Agriculture and Livestock Minister John Simon, PNG Cocoa Board officials, Kokonas Indastri Koporesen MD Allan Aku and Oil Palm Industry Corporation General-Secretary Kepson last month visited Parascos’ Awayama Village along the North Coast Highway outside Alotau.
Parascos baked a vanilla pound cake using locally-planted planifolia vanilla for Minister Simon and his delegation.
She went up a notch and used seeds from the beans instead of the extract.
So impressed was Minister Simon that he suggested that Parascos come to East Sepik, the hub of vanilla in PNG, and show the people there small-scale downstream processing of vanilla.
“I graduated as a journalist from Divine Word University in 2018,” Parascos, who is one who doesn’t mince her words, says.
“But I realised, after graduation, that I wasn’t part of mainstream media in Papua New Guinea.
“So, I decided to use my voice, my profession as a journalist, to give voice to the voiceless in my community.
“Having been home since 2018, I tried to find jobs here and there to make ends meet for myself as an individual and for my family.
“I ended up at Conflict Islands doing media analysis, recruiting university students to come and do turtle tagging, something that I love as well – conservation.”
Covid-19 struck last year, a blessing for Parascos, as her father encouraged her to go into agriculture.
“All I had to do was wake up, walk into his shoes, and the rest is history,” she adds.
“With cocoa and vanilla being the highest-earning cash crops in the country, little has been done in Maramatana (the local level government in which Awayama is located).
“I am not ashamed to say that leaders of this LLG have turned a blind eye to farmers who struggle day-in, day-out, to take to town.
“So I decided that I will use Facebook and my mobile phone to go on social media and show the negative side and the positive side of living in a village.
“It’s ‘Take Back PNG’, as our Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea James Marape has stated.
“I decided to take pictures of rotting cocoa pods, overgrown cocoa trees, from different farms in Awayama.
“I realised that there wasn’t much extension work.
“Maramatana LLG wasn’t sending out enough extension officers to go out for vanilla so my father decided, out of his own pocket, to send my partner, my little brother and siblings, to do data collection in 2018 and 2019.
“The latest one was in 2020 for cocoa.
“We found out that for cocoa, there were 9,802 trees that have been existing in Awayama for the last decade, with no extension work.
“We decided to turn our little farm of 468 cocoa trees to be a model farm, which is the result of PNG Cocoa Board coming down – as a result of my negative posts about extension officers.”
The PNG Cocoa Board responded and sent extension officers to Awayama.
“My encouragement to all the youngsters, youth leaders, church leaders and parents is that youths are the agents of change,” Parascos says.
“What are they instilling in us to go forth and be the agents of change?
“Agriculture has been the backbone of this country and still is today.
“Agriculture runs in our DNA and is not rocket science.
“I’m happy to say that with my expertise in journalism, I am able to go forth and help the farmers, at the level that they will understand.
“Without a voice, we will be still stagnant.
“Development will take place when we open up, and it’s time for the youth of today to rise up and say that, ‘let’s throw away our guns, leaves leave behind our tribal fights, stand together as youth of today and change out mindsets, stabilise the economy of Papua New Guinea and get into agriculture’.
“Agriculture is the way forward, nothing less, nothing more.
“Agriculture will put food on the table.
“It says in the Bible, ‘to dust you will return, and to ashes you will return’.
“True to that, and as a Christian member of my community, I can truly say that without toiling the land, you are nothing.
“Make use of the land before the land eats us up.”
Parascos forsees a bright future for agriculture in her beloved village of Awayama.
“In five years’ time, when we invite you people back here, you will taste cocoa that is produced right here in Awayama,” she says.
“Or, a chocolate cake baked right here in Awayama, using our cocoa.”

• Malum Nalu works with the Office of the Prime Minister.