If smallholder farming households in Papua New Guinea achieve higher crop productivity levels, progress will be made along several dimensions of the development vision for PNG – increasing GDP for the agricultural sector and the overall economy; driving growth, diversification, and transformation of local rural economies; improving food consumption; and reducing poverty. In this paper, we examine recent data on yields for the most important crops grown in PNG, assess what yields might be achieved based on productivity data from areas of Indonesia with similar growing conditions, and sketch where policy reforms could provide incentives and access to technologies to achieve higher crop yields by all farmers across PNG.
From May to December 2023, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) implemented a rural household survey that collected detailed data on rural household food consumption and expenditures, agricultural production practices, employment profiles, child and mother 24-hour diet recall, and child anthropometry measurements in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The research team carried out the survey, which used location-based sampling, across five agroecological study areas, of which four of the areas were defined using elevation and rainfall variation. The five agroecological survey areas were seasonal highlands, nonseasonal highlands, seasonal lowlands, nonseasonal lowlands, and islands (the islands survey sample was not disaggregated by elevation or precipitation patterns). In identifying seasonal and nonseasonal survey areas, we adapted the rainfall seasonality categories established by Bourke and Harwood (2009), who evaluated the relative difference in rainfall between the wet and the dry season using resource mapping units defined by the PNG Resource Information System (PNGRIS). The areas of the country that experience large seasonal variation in rainfall (heavy to light, depending on the season) are classified as seasonal, whereas the areas that experience moderate to continuously heavy rainfall throughout the year are classified as nonseasonal (see Figure A1.1 in the appendix for the survey seasonality classification by area). In nonseasonal areas, agricultural growing conditions remain similar year-round, whereas seasonal rainfall areas have agricultural conditions that necessitate a variety of production strategies. Lowland and highland areas were defined using elevation data; areas 1,000 meters or more above sea level were classified as highlands, and those below 1,000 meters were classified as lowlands. The survey collected data from 270 communities across 14 provinces, from a total of 2,699 households. It is important to note that the survey is not nationally representative. Rather, we chose a purposive sample using criteria that would enable analysts of the data to understand the key factors that interact within rural households and communities to create more resilient local food systems, more diversified employment profiles, and improved well-being. Generalizable relationships between variables that affect socioeconomic and other development outcomes in rural PNG communities should be seen consistently in both representative and unrepresentative survey samples.
Agriculture dominates the rural economy of Papua New Guinea (PNG). More than five million rural dwellers (80% of the population) earn a living from subsistence agriculture and selling crops in domestic and international markets. Many aspects of agriculture in PNG are described in this data-rich book. Topics include agricultural environments in which crops are grown; production of food crops, cash crops and animals; land use; soils; demography; migration; the macro-economic environment; gender issues; governance of agricultural institutions; and transport. The history of agriculture over the 50 000 years that PNG has been occupied by humans is summarised. Much of the information presented is not readily available within PNG. The book contains results of many new analyses, including a food budget for the entire nation. The text is supported by 165 tables and 215 maps and figures.
Agricultural Development: New Perspectives in a Changing World is the first comprehensive exploration of key emerging issues facing developing-country agriculture today, from rapid urbanization to rural transformation to climate change. In this four-part volume, top experts offer the latest research in the field of agricultural development. Using new lenses to examine today’s biggest challenges, contributors address topics such as nutrition and health, gender and household decision-making, agrifood value chains, natural resource management, and political economy. The book also covers most developing regions, providing a critical global perspective at a time when many pressing challenges extend beyond national borders. Tying all this together, Agricultural Development explores policy options and strategies for developing sustainable agriculture and reducing food insecurity and malnutrition. The changing global landscape combined with new and better data, technologies, and understanding means that agriculture can and must contribute to a wider range of development outcomes than ever before, including reducing poverty, ensuring adequate nutrition, creating strong food value chains, improving environmental sustainability, and promoting gender equity and equality. Agricultural Development: New Perspectives in a Changing World, with its unprecedented breadth and scope, will be an indispensable resource for the next generation of policymakers, researchers, and students dedicated to improving agriculture for global wellbeing.
Agriculture's vast potential to improve nutrition is just beginning to be tapped. New ideas, research, and initiatives developed over the past decade have created an opportunity for reimagining and redesigning agricultural and food systems for the benefit of nutrition. To support this transformation, the book reviews the latest findings, results from on-the-ground programs and interventions, and recent policy experiences from countries around the world that are bringing the agriculture and nutrition sectors closer together. Drawing on IFPRI's own work and that of the growing agriculture-nutrition community, this book strengthens the evidence base for, and expands our vision of, how agriculture can contribute to nutrition. Chapters cover an array of issues that link agriculture and nutrition, including food value chains, nutrition-sensitive programs and policies, government policies, and private sector investments. By highlighting both achievements and setbacks, Agriculture for Improved Nutrition seeks to inspire those who want to scale up successes that can transform food systems and improve the nutrition of billions of people.
Papua New Guinea's economic growth has outpaced the majority of economies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific since 2007. Its development challenges, however, remain daunting, and it lags behind other countries in the region in terms of per capita income and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. This raises the question of how the country can make its economic growth high, sustained, inclusive, and broad-based to more effectively improve its population's welfare. This report identifies the critical constraints to these objectives and discusses policy options to help overcome such constraints.
A joint FAO and World Bank study which shows how the farming systems approach can be used to identify priorities for the reduction of hunger and poverty in the main farming systems of the six major developing regions of the world.
Food systems around the world face a triple challenge: providing food security and nutrition for a growing global population; supporting livelihoods for those working along the food supply chain; and contributing to environmental sustainability. Better policies hold tremendous promise for making progress in these domains.
Norway is performing unevenly across its four agricultural policy objectives. While Norway enjoys a high level of food security and is meeting its aim of maintaining agricultural production across the country, both environmental performance and the efficient creation of value added along the food chain are compromised by support policies linked to production levels.
