Food and Agriculture in Papua New Guinea

Agriculture is the most important activity carried out by the vast majority of Papua New Guineans. For most people, agriculture fills their lives, physically, culturally, economically, socially and nutritionally. Yet agriculture is the most undervalued and misunderstood part of PNG life (see Twenty myths about PNG agriculture, page 1). The reasons for this are partly because mineral and oil exports make PNG comparatively wealthy for a developing country; partly because agriculture is practised in the countryside, away from towns, and is therefore largely ‘invisible’ to urban people and international visitors; and partly because agriculture is viewed as not being modern’.