The Missing Link In Pacific Planting

JT is a remarkable thing that no effort, either concerted or isolated, has been made by the Pacific Islands Administra tions to create an economic branch which might function in association with their departments of agriculture.

The Administrations spend annually substantial sums in various kinds of agricultural experiments —ascertaining what plants and trees will grow in par ticular areas; discovering the best methods of cultivation; examining pests and the most effective ways of dealing with them; and generally collecting and collating information which will sim plify the task of the planter in his busi ness of planting —but, as one old planter has put it in a letter to us, “what is the use of showing us all them pretty little plants set out in them pretty little plots, unless we know what it is going to cost us to grow them and where the market is?”

The various agricultural experts — directors, inspectors, botanists, entomolo gists, and so on —are maintained for the

benefit of the planters; and they, for the most part, carry out their duties efficiently and conscientiously. But, with that, the job is only half done. Not one planter will make a move to cultivate a new crop unless he has some reasonable assurance that the crop can be cultivated profitably under the particular condi tions of his territory, and unless he is assured that there is available to him a regular and fairly certain market.

The need for this information has been apparent for years, and it is surprising that nothing has been done to deal with the problem. There is in Papua, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, New Hebrides, Fiji, Samoa, and various other territories a great deal of land which might easily be cultivated —although, as a corre spondent in this issue points out, there are difficulties in the way of acquiring it.

There is, in most islands groups, an abundance of cheap labour and an as sured rainfall. Isolation, which once gave certain terrors to life in those

islands, is being steadily destroyed by

the advances of radio and aviation; tropical hygiene is removing the threat to health. Thousands of Europeans would go willingly to the Pacific Islands, and establish their homes there, if once they were assured they could earn a sufficient income to provide themselves with the necessary amenities of life in the tropics.

There is profit in growing coconuts — the staple industry of the South Seas — but the establishment of a coconut plan tation requires considerable capital, and the industry, at the moment, is attended with some uncertainty. But let it once be shown that there is a reasonably cer tain profit in the cultivation of various other tropical products which may supplement coconuts coffee, cocoa, kapok, tea, rattan, and various others — and there will be a steady influx of new settlers and new capital to the Islands; while the planters already there will take a new lease of life.

It is all a question of making the necessary data available. Half the in formation required is obtainable now — namely, how and when and where to grow the tropical plants. But the other,

and equally necessary information — namely, the value of the products, the cost of producing them, and the charac ter and location of markets —is missing.

So long as the economic data are missing the cost of producing the technical data (that is, how to grow a thing and where to grow it) represents largely a waste of time and effort.

This is a problem that is common to practically all Pacific Administrations.

Therefore, might it not be solved by a common effort? Is there anything fan tastic about the idea of forming an eco nomic committee, on which each of the various Pacific Administrations might be represented, and the duty of which would be to assemble and correlate in formation relating to the production costs and marketing of the various tropical commodities which can be produced in the South Seas, and for which there is a market ?