Japan continues to support rice development in PNG

By JAMES LARAKI of NARI

THE Japanese government has been commended for its continuous support to human resource development in developing countries, including Papua New Guinea through a number of training programmes.

 The training, sponsored by the Japanese government through the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), has provided vital hands-on trainings to participants in a number of fields.

Julie Sip, a research officer with National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI), who has been a beneficiary of one such training, has acknowledged JICA for facilitating the training programme, saying such training continues to provide useful skills that are beneficial to participants and to organisations they work for. 

Julie Sip having a go with a rice harvester under close supervision by a Japanese expert

Julie Sip (left) and two other participants going through hands-on training on the use of pudding machine during their training

Julie Sip (left) and two other participants going through hands-on training on the use of pudding machine during their training

She said many people had benefited from this programme and suggested that it be further strengthened and continued in the long run.

 Sip, who recently completed nine-months training on rice cultivation techniques, said she was able learn many new things in all aspects of rice research and cultivation.

“The training enabled us to learn the fundamentals of rice cultivation techniques and methods of experiments,” she said.

“We were introduced to the Japanese agriculture system and how to achieve sustainable rice cultivation.

“We were fortunate to learn the different experimental designs, observation techniques in research trials, data analysis, writing technical report and general presentation of results.”

Sip, who works with the rice and grain project of NARI, said the training was very useful as many aspects of rice production research and technology learned were applicable to PNG conditions to improve rice production.

She said it was important for us to improve rice production locally and work towards self-reliance on rice, especially in line with our efforts to improve food security in the country.

The training, undertaken at Tsukuba Science City, Ibaraki Prefecture, attracted more than 10 participants from various countries from Africa, Asia, Caribbean and the Pacific.

NARI has benefited through this training programme with many research and technical staff having attended similar training in the past.