OverviewThis project examines food insecurity amongst smallholder cocoa and oil palm households in Papua New Guinea where gardening systems are under stress.

Amongst oil palm growers, falling per capita incomes and declining access to land for food gardening are emerging because of population pressure. Amongst cocoa growers, the pest, Cocoa Pod Borer (CPB), is devastating smallholder production and has significantly reduced people’s capacity to purchase food. The project has two aims. The first is to assess the current status of food security by gaining a detailed understanding of the socio-economic and cultural factors influencing the farming and livelihood systems of smallholders and the capacity of smallholders to adapt and respond to stressors.

The findings of this reseach will advance our knowledge of the sustainability of subsistence and commodity crop farming systems in PNG and inform the project’s second aim of developing interventions to relieve pressures on farming systems thereby reducing smallholders’ vulnerability to food and income insecurity.

Strengthening livelihoods for food security amongst cocoa and oil palm farming communities in Papua New Guinea

ACIAR project number

ASEM/2012/072

Start date and duration (years)

1 January 2014 to 31 December 2017

Location Papua New Guinea

Budget $1.2m

Project leader(s) and Commissioned OrganisationGina Koczberski and George Curry Curtin University, Perth

Partner country project leaders and their institutionsSteven Nake PNG Oil Palm Research Organisation

Robert Nailina PNG Cocoa and Coconut Institute

ACIAR Research Program ManagerDr Jayne Curnow

FEBRUARY 2017

Left to right: Joachim Lummani1, Robert Nailina1, Susan May Inu2, Esley Peter1 and Kathleen Natera1. 1: PNG Cocoa and

Coconut Institute. 2. Coffee Industry Corporation

2

ResearchThe project aims to provide a detailed socio-economic and cultural understanding of the farming and livelihood systems of smallholders in Papua New Guinea to develop and evaluate suitable interventions to relieve the stressors on farming systems that make smallholders vulnerable to food and livelihood insecurity.

The project objectives are to:

» Assess the status of food security among cocoa and oil palm households.

» Determine the key factors that enhance or constrain the capacity of cocoa and oil palm households to adapt and respond to food insecurity.

» Assess and implement a range of strategies to improve the capacity of smallholders to produce and purchase food.

» Increase the capacity of smallholder households and extension providers to address food and livelihood security through improved access to training, information and information communications technologies (ICT) innovations.

AchievementsThe achievements of the project over the past year include:

» New knowledge of the status of food security among cocoa and oil palm smallholders in Papua New Guinea.

» Greater understanding of the main socio-economic factors affecting the farming and livelihood systems of smallholders and their influence on food and income security.

» Introduction of a new replanting option for oil palm smallholders that has the potential to improve food and income security of smallholder families.

» Four conference papers based on the project’s research results were presented by the PNG and Australian partners at the 6th Biennial conference of the Australian Association for Pacific Studies, James Cook University, Cairns, Australia.

Impact storyOver the last two decades, subsistence food production in PNG is increasingly coming under both short and long-term pressures due to growing market integration, resource and population pressures, environmental stresses and changing consumption patterns. Yet little scientific information is available on how both internal and external factors are impacting on farming and livelihood systems and the status of food security among smallholder households.

This project is filling this knowledge gap.

The outcomes are generating new information and a greater understanding of the status of food security among oil palm and cocoa smallholders in PNG and the range of adaptive strategies farmers are pursuing to respond to pressures on their farming and livelihood systems.

In the Pacific, this type of information is becoming important with increasing concerns about climate change and other environmental threats and stressors that impact on the capacity of the rural poor to maintain food and income security. To increase the project’s contribution to scientific knowledge in the Pacific region, the research findings are being presented in forums beyond PNG.

In April this year, four papers, drawing on the project findings were presented by the PNG and Australian researchers at the 6th Biennial conference of the Australian Association for Pacific Studies at James Cook University. The papers were presented in the panel on ‘Adaptation, Resilience and Changing Land and Marine-based Livelihood Systems in the Pacific’.

The conference also provided an opportunity for the project researchers to present their research to academic peers at an international conference. In Papua New Guinea, where conference funding is scarce, the opportunity for researchers to attend an international conference is rare, especially for early career researchers.

Front: Emmanual Germis. Left to right: Geraldine Tilden, Robert Nailina, Esley Peter, Susan May Inu, Joachim Lummani, Reuben

Sengere, Elizabeth Dumu, Steven Nake, Veronica Bue, Gina Koczberski and Kathleen Natera. 1. PNG Oil Palm Research Assocation. 2. Curtin University 3: PNG Cocoa and Coconut

Institute. 4. Coffee Industry Corporation