Agriculture in Papua New Guinea

Agriculture in Papua New Guinea has a more than 7,000 years old history. Currently around 85% of Papua New Guinea's population lives from semi-subsistence agriculture.[1]

Papua New Guinea produces and exports agricultural, timber, and fish products. Agriculture currently accounts for 25% of GDP and supports more than 80% of the population. Cash crops ranked by value are coffee, oil, cocoa, copra, tea, rubber, and sugar. The timber industry was not active in 1998, due to low world prices, but rebounded in 1999. About 40% of the country is covered with timber rich trees, and a domestic woodworking industry has been slow to develop. Fish exports are confined primarily to shrimp, although fishing boats of other nations catch tuna in Papua New Guinea waters under license.

Papua New Guinea is the largest yam market in Asia.

History

People in Papua New Guinea started practising agriculture around 7,000 - 10,000 years ago. The oldest evidence for this is in the Kuk Swamp area, where planting, digging and staking of plants, and possibly drainage have been used to cultivate taro, banana, sago and yam.[2]

Between the 17th to 19th centuries, a small number of plant species, including sweet potato, cassava and tobacco have been brought from the Americas by Europeans and introduced to Indonesia from where they spread to New Guinea. In the second part of the 19th century and especially after 1870 further crops have been introduced directly by Europeans, including beans, pumpkin, corn, watermelon, papaya, mangosteen, durian, orange, lemon, coffee, lime and guava.[2]

Major agricultural products

Sweet potato

Sweet potato is a major food in PNG and dominates production in the highlands.[3] It is one of PNGs top five staple foods taking the top position 99%, followed by banana with 96% and taro with 95%.[4]

Coffee

Coffee production in Papua New Guinea accounts for a little over 1% of the total world production according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).[5] After oil palm, coffee is Papua New Guinea's second largest agricultural export, employing approximately 2.5 million people.

Copra

Copra has been cultivated in New Guinea since the late 19th century, originally by German colonialists. Production has continued by Australian interests since World War II.

See also

References

  1. ↑ AusAID: About Papua New Guinea Archived 2011-05-18 at the Wayback Machine., retrieved 5 May 2011
  2. 1 2 Bourke, R. Michael: History of agriculture in Papua New Guinea in Food and Agriculture in Papua New Guinea, ANU Press, 2009 Archived April 15, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
  3. ↑ R. Michael Bourke, John Gibson, Alan Quartermain, Kate Barclay, Bryant Allen and Jean Kennedy: Food Production, Consumption and Imports in Food and Agriculture in Papua New Guinea, ANU Press, 2009 Archived April 15, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ↑ Bourke, R.M and Hartwood T.(eds) (2009) Food and Agriculture im PNG, ANU Press, Camberra
  5. ↑ "COFFEE INDUSTRY CORPORATION LIMITED" (PDF). United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 August 2009. Retrieved 24 September 2010.
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