East Papuan Rice

A Factor in the Feeding of Lamington Refugees

A BOUT the only bright spot in the Mount Lamington disaster, in Papua, is the fillip it seems to be giving to rice production.

Apart from the 4,000 natives lost in the eruption, another 4,000 or so have been displaced, and are refugees, so that the Administration has the serious problem of providing food and shelter, Mr. Claude Champion (one of the ex perienced Champion brothers in the Administration, and at present Assistant Government Secretary) reported in February that many of the refugees were being fed with rice grown by the natives in the Kokoda villages, above Wairope.

“We have an official stationed at Wairope just to supervise the hulling of rice” said Mr. Champion.

He also reported that the Administra tion was proceeding vtith plans to start the production of rice on the large plains at Ilimo, some four miles on the Kokoda side of Wairopi.

For some years the Administration has been trying to encourage the production of hill rice (as distinguished from padi rice) in this part of Papua; and it is in teresting to note that this enterprise has proceeded so far as to become a factor of imnortance in the feeding of thousands of refugees.

The events of the war and nost-war periods completely dislocated the rice growing industry of Southeast Asia, so that supplies are not now readily available to the Pacific Islands. Rice landed in Western Pacific ports now costs about £7O per ton, so it would seem to be about time that every effort be made to stimulate rice production in Papua-New Guinea.