From ANTHONY FLYNN
Wau
By
promoting land registration our leaders are now advocating a return to
the pre-independence days of expatriate development. Village land is to
be registered and our leaders will find developers.
This is quite clear from the Prime minister’s comments on the front page of a newspaper.
Our leaders have now acknowledged their collective failure to produce efficient small farmers throughout Papua New Guinea
It
can be readily understood that agricultural development and profits do
not come in a few years; the economic life of the present young
generation will be over by the time that the land should be returned.
I have grave doubts that the land will ever be returned to the people under a later regime.
Corruption appears to be the order of the day now.
Corruption will remain and can only be worse when these land registration deals mature.
With many other citizens, my experience is that Lands Department, with other departments, is corrupt.
It is now 35 years after independence; Papua New Guinea
This is a country of unsustainable slash and burn gardens.
There are very few developed farms to be handed on to sons.
We should be developing many, more independent, stable farming communities.
Almost everything relating to agriculture depends largely on the necessary input of expatriates.
When
there are no produce exporters, there is no export income; no feed
mill, no chicken business; no flourmill, no bread; no importers, no
tools, etc.
In
the early 1960’s I enjoyed fresh milk and cream from Jersey cows in the
Trobriands; fresh milk, cream and cheese at the Lutheran missions
throughout the Highlands .
I helped a missionary to make bacon near Kundiawa.
Are these things beyond the ability of the people of today?
The stable farming system where these activities can develop has never been promoted.
New tools, yes; new crops, yes; stable farming system, no! 
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