Thinking beyond the farmgates – post-LNG

 By Jessie Abiuda Mitir

From Asia to the Pacific, farmers struggle to make ends meet either for self consumption or for commercial purpose. 

Although the agricultural climate is conducive the struggles are similar, from innovative farming practices to infrastructure.

In Papua New Guinea best or­ganic vegetables are grown in the most remotest parts of the country that money cannot buy, simply because it is too remote.

The market options need to be further explored by the agricultural sector because Fiji farmers are growing taro, ginger, red papaya, locally and exporting them to New Zealand, Australia, Japan and USA, and others such as Samoa are exporting drinking nuts (young coconut juice). How about PNG?

Apart from the exports, there is a large demand for PNG vegetables in the domestic market yet high perishability along the way to the markets leaves a lot to be desired for farmers.

The rural indigenous communities grow their vegetables in the most fertile areas where crops can be grown in abundance. 

These can just as well feed the nation and go beyond that to feed our Pacific Island neighbours. 

But do our rural communities, with their native crops and fertile land, care for the market and for the demand that emerges from it? 

Do they understand the value of linking their produce to the consumer in more ways than one? Do they know how to meet specific post-harvest handling requirements to minimise loss? 

Do they know how to package their produce and transport to the markets? 

PNG can boast of its crop diversity, its fertile soils and good agricultural climate but what about the lack of infrastructure such as roads and bridges, agricultural technologies, low cost transport, storage and market facilities; these are issues that cause the gap between the farmgate, where the crops are grown and harvested, and the consumer. Because of this gap rural farming communities grow their crops using traditional farming methods for their domestic consumption. To grow surplus is when there is a monetary need, which in most cases is school fees. 

There is concern that smallholder farmers and rural communities lack the information, knowledge and skills to improve their subsistence agricultural practices and agribusiness opportunities. 

The National Agricultural Re­search Institute (NARI) is studying effective and efficient ways of developing farmer knowledge and skills in adopting innovative agricultural prac­tices and value chain practices. This is further enhanced through networking with organisations in government and non-government organisations. 

In a recent workshop in Nadi, Fiji, NARI participated in a Pacific Island Farmer Organisation Network meeting that was essential for small farmer organisations in the Pacific. It was essential for NARI to attend and understand the farming issues that other Pacific Island countries are experiencing so that it can improve its line of activities with rural farmers in PNG. 

Networking is one way of building stakeholder engagement to create a feasible environment for farmers to succeed in their farming activities. 

We can argue that in PNG agricultural extension is non-existent but it is through networking that NARI and its development partners create a good learning and training environment for the rural farmers. 

This has been exemplified in trainings that have been conducted. However, there are some farmers who enjoy the privilege of basic agricultural training but revert to using their basic technologies and neglect the introduced agricultural technologies. This is an attitude problem that has nothing to do with the agents of change but the farmers themselves. Take rice for instance. Despite its popularity in PNG, rice production has made little progress. 

For rural farming communities that have taken on board the new and innovative agricultural practices there are success stories of agricultural knowledge empowerment which have been used well. These success stories have never been told simply because they have not been well documented, and because of this there have been negative implications on the efforts of agricultural research and development agencies. 

For example vegetable production (bulb onion, carrots, English potato etc) is an area which most farmers in the Highlands have adapted and are producing. Improved feeding system and health management for poultry and pigs are some examples of agricultural innovations which farming communities have adapted and are using.

From the Highlands region comes some of these successful farmers’ stories. The progress and achievement is because of those who have impacted on the lives of these farmers and the farmers’ pro-activeness in going beyond their gardens and families kitchens. 

The Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA) and other community orientated development organisations have done well in empowering rural farmers in rising from farmers to entrepreneurs.

Smallholder farmers need proper understanding of quality and quantity and the value of land and soil, seeds and yields, labour and production, post harvest handling and packaging, storage and transportation; and market demand.