This year PNG
celebrated 36 years of nationhood.
Joel Waramboi (left) carrying out extrusion of sweet potato |
One thing that
has not stopped growing ever since is our population, and in the last 10 years,
our population has been growing rapidly at about 2.4% per annum, reaching 8
million people in 2011.
During the same
period, although there is no concrete data, our per capita gross domestic
product could have declined dramatically due to several factors like lower
outputs from agricultural crops and commodities.
On the other hand, the consumer price index has
risen, which now sits at around 10%.
This is an
alarming trend, and by 2016, the population is expected to be around 12
million, which even is far more worrying than we were 10 years ago.
This will place
huge demands on increasing food production and assuring food security for our
people.
Reports from the Asian Development Bank shows that, the
natural resources sector (agriculture, forestry, fisheries) contributes almost
70% of total cash income for people in PNG.
These industries will continue to be prime movers of the
local economy.
From 2014
onwards, massive revenue inflows are expected from the LNG project.
In September this year, Agriculture and
Livestock minister, Sir Puka Temu called on the government to put some of these
monies into food and agriculture industries.
His calling is
timely, and must be supported at the political level.
In 2005, the PNG
Government adopted the Green Revolution and Export-Driven Economic
Recovery Strategy.
For the sector, this strategy was aimed at improving production and
creating market demands for our crops to meet the growing domestic demands, and
also to seek export market opportunities.
In recent years,
we have seen several vehicles that could have taken the sector forward gone by,
like the Public Investment Programme and the National
Agriculture Development Plan.
Last month, a forum aimed at setting the road-map for policy
intervention to develop the food and agriculture sector was held in Madang.
Several projects
and programmes have been tried out before on tree crops, livestock, fisheries
and other natural resources industries.
As far as the
food crops are concerned, no investments have been made to develop these
industries.
One potential food crop that requires minimal capital injection is the
sweet potato (kaukau).
Sweet potato |
Since being introduced nearly 300 years ago, it is now the most important
food crop in terms of both production and consumption.
Total annual production for PNG has been estimated at 2.9 million tonnes,
with the Southern (620,000) Eastern (470,000) and Western
(425,000) highlands provinces being the main producers, followed by Enga
(340,000) and Chimbu (294,000).
It is a staple
food, and provides 64% of the energy needs for people.
Five years ago,
per capita consumption was 2.2 kg/person/year, and this year, increased to 2.8
kg/person/year.
One reason to
explain this is that, in the last 10 years, sweet potato has been traded in
increasing volumes as a cash crop in urban centres of Port Moresby, Lae, Kokopo
and other centres.
There are many
constraints that affect production and marketing of the crop, including soil
fertility, rats (which can destroy up to 10% of the crop), poor access to
roads, lack of farmer extension services, and poor post-harvest handling
practices that lead to rotting, broken roots and subsequent loss in monetary
value.
Currently, a few ‘commercial’ sweetpotato
farmers are located in the Asaro and Waghi valleys, who grow mainly for coastal
urban markets.
Currently,
utilisation and consumption of sweetpotato
in PNG has primarily been in the form of boiled or roasted roots.
There is no processing of the crop.
In the past, some research and product development work was done at the PNG
Unitech into products like flour, chips, crisps and composite bread. Recently, NARI successfully released sweet potato-based feeds (silage) for
pigs.
Experiences
from Vietnam and China have shown that, the crop could be highly utilised for livestock
production, where it constitutes 70% of pig feeds.
Past and
current R&D work on sweet potato suggest that it can be a potential
commercial crop for PNG.
On-farm
processing of sweet potato could form an additional income-generating activity
where a constant supply of the fresh roots and demand for processed products is
secured.
With
government assistance, this industry can be transformed from its currently
under-utilised status to a commercially viable industry.
At the
University of Queensland in Australia, new research by this author on the flour, starch and processing properties of
sweetpotato conducted since 2009 has generated valuable information that has the potential to trigger
industry development in PNG.
In the initial study, 25 varieties were studied,
and from there, four of them, namely, Beerwah Gold (Australian) and three PNG varieties
(Northern Star, Snow White, L49) were processed into ready-to-eat pasta
(noodle-like) products using extrusion cooking technology.
The studies showed that, sweet potato can easily be extruded
by controlling processing conditions like moisture content, screw speed and
temperature to produce high quality and nutritious products.
The flours were extruded at three moisture (30, 35
and 40 %), and screw speed (150, 220 and 300 rpm) levels, while the temperature
(120 °C) and feed rate (1.5kg/hr) were kept constant.
The study has also generated vital information on process
engineering, energy input, flow properties, cooking characteristics, nutrient
retention, product quality, as well as protocols for cultivar selection, unit
operations and flour milling.
Sweet potato processing is increasingly being commercialised
in many countries in Africa, Asia and the United States.
In November 2010, ConAgra
Foods in the US opened their new, state-of-the-art, and environmentally-friendly
processing plant near Delhi, Louisiana, designed primarily to process
sweet potato fries and other products.
This investment created 275 jobs, and future expansion is
set to increase the total number of jobs to more than 500.
In Louisiana, the swee potato industry is the largest in the country that is worth $68.4 million in
gross farm income and $24 million in value-added (processed) products for the
state.
In Australia, the sweet potato industry is worth A$40 million annually.
This year, McCain’s launched a new line of gourmet
sweet potato superfries.
The oven-baked fries are thin, crinkle-cut, and cooked
in canola oil and seasoned with salt.
The product is healthy, has high vitamin A and mineral
contents.
TV advertisements have successfully supported the launch, and
a 450g packet is selling for $3.89 (about K9) in supermarkets around Australia.
There are low-cost
extrusion equipment available, costing as low as $10,000 (K24,000) with production
capacity of 30 kg/hour.
These have successfully been used in rural
communities in Vietnam, China, Peru, Kenya and other countries to make noodles, pasta, vermicelli, flakes, crackers, puffs and other
products.
Besides
extruded foods, these communities have also used sweet potato flour for substituted
biscuits, bread and scones, while fresh roots have been processed into chips
and crisps.
Currently,
fresh sweetpotato roots are sold at around K2-5 per kg in the open markets in
PNG.
Although
there are no statistics, some rough calculations show that, if processed, the dry
flour could cost as low as K0.80 per kg, providing a cheaper product compared
to wheat flour.
This
means that, retail margins can be relatively good for entrepreneurs.
Processing
not only increases the utilisation and consumption, but also fetches premium
prices if sold, increases cash income opportunities for people, and avoids
bulkiness during handling.
Sweet potato
processing technologies are relatively simple, and can be adopted easily
through farmer co-operatives and women’s groups like the PNG Women in
Agriculture, Foundation for Women in Agriculture for Development in Maprik and
Rural Women’s Development Initiative in Mt Hagen.
Generally,
there appears to be a strong and all-year round demand for processed products.
Changing
food habits, increasing urbanisation, demographic changes and population growth
are all positive factors that can make food processing a viable option in PNG.
The PNG
government and all line agencies must now take a complete policy shift and
focus, and realign both macro-economic and sectoral policies, and allocate
funding and resources to develop the agriculture and food processing industries
in the country.
Alongside this, it should also invest in rural
infrastructure programmes to create enabling environment that will support industry
development and growth in rural communities.
We should
also take a stock of what and why the industry has not developed over the many
years.
If past
investment options (if any) have not worked, what other models and options can
we try?
How about
setting up an organisation specifically mandated to drive development in this
sector?
It is
about time, that the food and agriculture sector takes this course to
revolutionise and hardness the potential to fullness.
Until and
unless this is done, crops like sweet potato will continue to be treated as poor
man's crop.
Downstream processing and value addition has the
potential to benefit en masse, raise the economic value, and create market
demand for local crops.
It will also improve food security and cash income
levels, increase trade and replace/substitute imports, thereby contributing to
broad-based economic growth and improvement in the living standards of the
people.
Peeled sweet potato |
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Joel Waramboi is a Senior Scientist with NARI. He will be completing his PhD
degree in 2012 at the University of Queensland, Australia. He has published several papers on his sweetpotato
research internationally. He can be contacted on j.waramboi@uq.edu.au
or through mnalu@thenational.com.pg
Awesome article - great stuff from Joel. With you on this, I believe in Agri-business & down stream processing, we can do it!
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