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]

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]

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).[4] After oil palm, coffee is Papua New Guinea's second largest agricultural export, employing approximately 2.5 million people.

Copra

See also

References

  1. ↑ AusAID: About Papua New Guinea, 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. ↑ "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.

External links

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