Rich new database on agriculture in Papua New Guinea

By MALUM NALU

A most up-to-date Papua New Guinea agriculture literature database is now available on compact disc for farmers, academics and the general public in the country.

It will be a handy companion to Food and Agriculture in Papua New Guinea, the most up-to-date and most-informative publication ever done on the subject in the country, which was launched in Port Moresby recently by former deputy prime minister Sir Puka Temu.

The database was compiled by Land Management Group of Australian National University, the same group which put together the book.

Dr Michael Bourke of the ANU, who put together the CD and book, said it would be a most-welcome addition to PNG agriculture.

“What we’ve done is we’ve put in the CD is about 17,000 references to agriculture in Papua New Guinea,” he said.

“You can search for a reference with a keyword, or a word in the title, or an author.

“So, for example, if you type in ‘woman’, you’ll come up with about 800 papers.

“If you type ‘woman’ and ‘Bougainville’, you might come up with 20 papers.”

The good news for PNG is that the CD is being distributed freely throughout the country and a copy can be obtained by sending an email to Sue Rider at sue.rider@anu.edu.au.

“It needs some software to run, and the software is called Endnote,” Dr Bourke adds.

“It’s very powerful.”