Growing food at

Trade

Winds

Growing food at tome has its problems for PNG

ipua New Guinea’s Food and Nutrition Policy has as its aims *eduction in dependence on food imports and an improvement in ? nutritional status of the people. Geoff Harris of the Agricultural onomics Research Unit at Lincoln College, New Zealand, %gests that self-reliance is a laudable aim but has its costs.

iod imports make up about % of Papua New Guinea’s al imports and provide out the same proportion of al food supplies. The prob n is particularly marked in rt Moresby where about 70% food requirements are ported. The estimated pro rtion of children under five irs of age suffering from ilnutrition in early 1978 was 7c against 43% in 1975.

The government’s Food and

itrition Policy, adopted last

ir, has three specific tar ts: fo increase overall food ake from an estimated 80% recommended nutritional juirements to at least 90%.

Fo increase commercial food eduction so that there is no ther increase in the volume

food imports.

fo maintain subsistence pro ction at current levels per

ad of rural population,

fhese targets will require a issive 166% increase in

irketed domestic production

tween 1976 and 1986, prin •ally to feed a much larger aan population, and a 24% :rease in subsistence pro ction to feed an increased

lage population at the higher

ake level. Major emphasis is be given to Port Moresby, fhe policy assumes a 125% Tease in the urban Papua

:w Guinean population be

sen 1976 and 1986, a growth e of about 8.5% per annum, is appears to be a substantial 2r-estimate for two reasons. *st, the experience of the riod from the 1971 census til 1977, when further imates were made by the bu rn of statistics, indicates a >wth rate of 5.6%, ranging m 4.2% for Madang and haul to 8.2% a year for Port

Dresby.

Second, there is evidence which suggests that the rate of growth of urban populations is likely to slow down. This evi dence is based on work carried out by the Australian National University and the University of Papua New Guinea which showed that migration to urban areas (the major source of growth) is related to the

availability of employment

opportunities. Employment opportunities have been grow ing less rapidly since the mid-19705, principally because of the reduction in the rate of growth of government expen diture, and it is to be expected that the rate of migration into towns will be correspondingly reduced. Thus the target in crease of 166% in marketed domestic production is an over estimate and 100% would be a more realistic target. Con

versely, subsistence agriculture

will have to support more people (those who would otherwise have migrated from rural areas and probably some returnees from urban areas).

The second area for con sideration is exactly how a sub stantial increase in marketed domestic production is to be achieved. The policy does not go into this in any detail and suggests that government departments put forward schemes for funding under the

extra-budgetary national pub

lic expenditure plan. Clearly,

however, the policy envisages

large-scale commercial pro duction and, significantly, comments that this should not be achieved by encouraging a

surplus from village subsist

ence producers using tra ditional methods.

One obvious reason is that the present prices of village produced staples are consider ably higher than those of

imported alternatives, es

pecially in Port Moresby.

Another reason is the likeli hood of an imbalance being created between available land and the number of people being fed from it and, perhaps, lowering of village nutrition if priority is given to market food production. Any increase in food supplies from village pro ducers, states the policy, should utilise more appropriate farm ing systems. On this topic, Pro fessor Bill Clarke of Monash

University has recently written

a paper on ‘environmentally sustainable modifications’ to traditional agricultural sys tems.

Large-scale commercial pro duction then may be under

taken by village groups, using

mechanised cultivation or by non-Papua New Guineans with the aim of nationals being phased in as soon as possible. The investment guidelines of the National Investment and Development Authority (NIDA) have been adjusted to allow naturalised and non-citizens to participate in commercial growing of tra ditional staples near urban

centres. Commercial market

gardening of European vege

tables was carried out on a

large-scale near Port Moresby

by Australian and American army personnel during the Pa cific War. The experience of this activity and subsequent re search by the Department of

Primary Industry indicate sev

eral important points:

• Production of European

vegetables is possible but

financially marginal, given the

need for mechanised culti vation, irrigation, weed and disease control and fertiliser. • After several years culti vation, insect, weed and dis

ease problems require the

relocation of gardens.

Many of the required inputs

would have to be imported.

As a source of food to re

place imports, traditional

staples are more valuable than