Agriculture & Fisheries
From The Report: Papua New Guinea 2015
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While overshadowed by energy and mining investments, Papua New Guinea’s agricultural sector is a key earner of foreign currency and a primary employer for many of its citizens. The country’s fertile land makes the sector and its downstream processing and value-added spin-offs the most viable option for absorbing its growing workforce, while continuing to provide potential for the economy in the long term. The palm oil industry dominates the sector, accounting for two-thirds of all agriculture exports excluding the forestry and fisheries industries. While the smaller fisheries benefit the country by supplying local markets with fish and modest exports when their respective fisheries are healthy, the sector remains largely reliant upon the tuna trade. The government has allocated significant funding for agriculture development, which should help the industry become more cost competitive in the long run. Growth will come from several subsectors, including improvements in the cultivation of coffee and cocoa as a result of yield-boosting initiatives.

This chapter contains interviews with Pedro Celso, CEO, RD Tuna; and John Nightingale, Managing Director, Agmark.

Articles from this Chapter

Overview

Agriculture keeps expanding in PNG
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While overshadowed by energy and mining investments, Papua New Guinea’s agricultural sector is both as a key earner of foreign currency and as a primary employer for many of its citizens. The country’s fertile land makes the sector and its downstream processing and value-added spin-offs the most viable option for absorbing its growing workforce, while continuing to provide potential for the economy in the long term. In recent years weak commodity prices for some of the industry’s key cash…

Analysis

Global cocoa price increases motivate growers in PNG
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The past decade have seen trying times for cocoa farmers in Papua New Guinea. They have dealt with devastating attacks by the maligned cocoa pod borer (CPB) starting in 2006, followed by a drop in cocoa market prices which have brought the industry to the brink of collapse in recent years. Concerted efforts to revive the crop were led by farmers, international aid organisations and local trade organisations such as the Cocoa and Coconut Institute, and are now beginning to show results, with producers…

Interview

Pedro Celso, CEO, RD Tuna: Interview
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Interview: Pedro Celso To what extent are the limits of the current vessel day scheme affecting stocks in Papua New Guinea? PEDRO CELSO: The current system was put in place by regional governments as part of the Nauru Agreement to reduce catches of target tuna species, as well as to maximise the economic benefits by collecting the access fees paid by distant fishing nations. Although industry was supportive of this initiative, there are currently concerns about the sustainability of the scheme,…

Interview

John Nightingale, Managing Director, Agmark: Interview
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Interview: John Nightingale What are the major competitive advantages of coffee and cocoa from Papua New Guinea? JOHN NIGHTINGALE: Demand for cocoa from PNG on the international market has remained strong, relative to other origins, due to the consistency of quality, its unique flavour and its traceability. We have some concerns that quality control standards have slipped, but our own internal controls remain very high. PNG cocoa production could quadruple and we would have no trouble selling…

Analysis

Favourable conditions
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Palm oil has long been a success story for Papua New Guinea’s agricultural sector, with large plantations providing the bulk of agricultural export revenues and serving as a crucial component of economic diversification efforts to balance out the heavily weighted extractive industry sectors. Established in the 1960s, the original Hoskins and Bialla (now Hargy Oil Palms) oil palm plantations were set up in New Britain according to the nucleus estate smallholder (NES) model. The NES system was designed…

Analysis

PNG’s export of raw logs supports growth
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Second in the agriculture segment to the palm oil industry in export value, Papua New Guinea’s forestry sector continues to expand on the back of strong regional demand for raw materials. The rate of growth for the industry has accelerated over the past decade as the government has allocated large swaths of land for agricultural development which has allowed companies to fell increasing amounts of valuable tropical hardwoods for export. A very diverse range of timber species are harvested from…

Analysis

PNG works to better manage fishing sources
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Endowed with some of the most bountiful fisheries in the world, PNG’s waters have traditionally supplied abundant amounts of protein- and nutrient-rich food for settlements dotting the country’s 17,000 km of coastline. While seafood remains a key staple for many Papua New Guineans’ diets, the presence of highly sought after catches, such as tuna, prawns, lobster and others, has fuelled a growing commercial industry. Participants operate a diverse array of fisheries across the country in varied…