Securing our food, its accessibility and price in light of the Coronavirus pandemic

Press Statement by Wilson Thompson, President of Farmers and Settlers Association, March 30 2020

The health, safety and security of the people of Papua New Guinea (PNG) are paramount and the 14 days lockdown (March 24-April 6) is commended so that our health risks can be assessed.

Wilson Thompson

However food is a basic need. There is a myth that PNG has an abundance of land and food, including their access. In fact, it’s quite contrary. People on the coast may have marine produce but also face shortages of sago, sweet potato and taro or other protein sources. In the Highlands, people look after pigs but these are often slaughtered on special occasions and do not cater for daily protein requirements.

The country has been subjected to various incursions by pest and diseases that have ultimately caused havoc on agricultural production and threatening food security and export revenue.

These bio-security threats and the current Coronavirus pandemic pose major risks to the majority of the people of PNG who rely on agriculture and livestock, where 85% of the people engage as smallholder farmers, using their customary land (97%).

We are concerned that at the present time, many countries or our trading partners have established their own protocols on the movement of transport into their ports.

Some have restrictions for 30 days, or more or less, whilst PNG is on a 14 days lockdown, and the Parliament may extend the State of Emergency (SOE) for a further 21 days or more based on its risk assessment reports.

We call upon the Government to look beyond the health aspect and the security and law and order issues during the SOE period to assess our own food security issues. This is the perfect opportunity to assess where certain fruits, vegetables and livestock and fish products are available and who is buying them and moving to the consolidation sheds or sold directly to markets.

This is the opportunity for our relevant agencies to upscale their work and start working with our established agricultural companies and processors such as the Zenag Chicken, Mainland Holdings, NKW Group of Companies, Rumion Piggery and Prima and Lae Biscuit, Paradise Foods, Vitis, IPI Catering, Innovative Agriculture and Ramu Agri Industries, Anitua, IPI Catering etc.

The SOE is also opportunity to nurturing our local farmers and our local industries. There is no import ban on livestock and fresh food but countries are worried about their own people and PNG must be conscious of this, if this pandemic extends beyond months such as seen elsewhere.

The SOE may look to restrict movements and that may seem so but it is also an opportune time for people to visit their vegetable plots, coffee, cocoa and coconut patches and work in self-isolation and keep themselves busy and away from crowded areas. We must note that we do not have big farms and most of our fresh fruits and vegetables, and livestock and meat products, are already produced in isolation or social distancing.

For example, the protein and nutrition requirements for the majority of our people has been the poultry industry. Most people in both coastal, inland and highlands villages now look after poultry that supplies chicken meat and eggs as a low-cost high protein food. It is now part of a staple diet. It is important to PNG in providing food security, stability, rural employment and SME farmers with an income.

Industry players like the Mainland Holdings, Zenag Chicken and CLTC breed and distribute Day Old Chickens around the country and it is seen in almost every corner of the country, mostly by plane and a day trip. The PNG Poultry Industry is a 24 hour/7 day a week, 52 weeks a year business; it does not stop. Apart from individual farmers, the out-grower farmers in Morobe raise the chicken to deliver to the processing companies that are packaged and supplied around the country.

Day Old Chickens

If PNG cannot get feed into the farms, our major producers like Mainland and Zenag would kill over 1,000,000 chickens and this will take 12 to 18 months to get production backup and cheap protein into the PNG Market. The same would apply to piggeries, etc.

PNG must plan for the inevitable; meaning we could move to Code Red either by threats in the country or by restrictions with our trading partners. Feed stock would be a problem for our livestock sector so as well as rice and other inputs required in the food processing sector.

PNG needs to keep supply chains for food products flowing to the people to mitigate the risk of public outrage if there is panic buying that leads to food shortages. It is also important that Day Old Chickens get out to the S.M.E Farmers throughout the country. Again, cash flow into the villagers and food security in their own communities.

We need to keep stores open; this will help maintain public calm and order. Maintaining essential services is important for the Government (i.e. food security, public calm, public health, economic stability etc.). As observed in Australia, Europe and throughout the world, the maintenance of food supply chains is critical for mitigating public panic during the pandemic.

It is paramount that PNG heeds this global lesson in its own management response. In coordination with the PNG Government the livestock (poultry and piggery) industry will contribute to the food security of our nation. However, to do so, we need the government’s assistance to maintain the following essential basic services to support our very small but essential agriculture companies.

Key essential basic service providers that are to support the agriculture and food processing industry should be controlled but targeted:-

• Shipping lines,
• Wharfage and handling,
• NAQIA for Bio security,
• Customs,
• Utility providers like PNG Power, Telikom, Bmobile and Digicel,
• Department of Transport and Works to keep sea, air and roads open, and
• Domestic cargo flights and Land Transport for farm inputs and finished products to the retailers and at least retailers or food outlets to reduce panic.

Certain aspects of our primary sector such as livestock (poultry industry), meat and fish canning, sugar processing, cooking oil and rice needs to be recognized as “essential food industry”, essential to the country by promulgation in Emergency Regulations so that they can continue to operate to cater for the food security needs of the country .