Bryant Allen

The sustainability of Papua New Guinea agricultural systems: the conceptual background

Abstract Papua New Guinea offers an opportunity to study the Intensification and sustainability of village agriculture under the pressures of demographic change and social and economic development. This paper describes research investigating the process of agricultural intensification. Theories of intensification suggest the process is associated with increasing population, or with increased production for social purposes, or both. Intensification brings about changes that must be overcome by innovation. Innovation may demand temporary or permanent increases in labour, and changes in the social relations of production, but intensification without innovation is likely to lead to land degradation. A tension exists between the environment, social organization, production and the adoption of innovative techniques, which may determine whether intensification is sustainable. The research is presently identifying, mapping and systematically describing agricultural systems. Preliminary results suggest intensification is positively associated with altitude, sweet potato (lpomoea batatas) cultivation, and with a number of innovative agronomic techniques.

Deforestation and forest degradation in Papua New Guinea

Abstract• The Government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) has played a prominent part in recent negotiations for “rainforest nations” to be compensated for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation or forest degradation (DFD).• A new report “The State of the Forests of Papua New Guinea” claims that rates of DFD in PNG are much higher than have previously reported. It suggests more than half of PNG’s remaining forests will have disappeared or be damaged beyond recovery by 2021.• We argue that this claim is incorrect. The report overestimates the area of intact primary forest in 1972 and the impact of traditional land use practices on forest cover. Much of what the RSLUP report considers as deforestation is part of a cycle of traditional clearance for farming, fallow and regrowth that has been occurring for hundreds of years.• The assumption that areas impacted by harvesting or shifting cultivation will inevitably degrade and become non-forest is also not supported by observation of cutover forest in PNG. A considerable proportion of cutover forest areas will recover carbon stocks after harvesting.• It is argued that traditional land use practices and forest recovery processes need to be considered in assessing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and degradation in countries with complex land use histories such as PNG.Résumé• Le Gouvernement de Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée (PNG) a joué un rôle important dans les récentes négociations pour que « les pays à forêt tropicale humide » soient indemnisés pour la réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre provenant de la déforestation ou la dégradation des forêts (DFD).• Un nouveau rapport « L’État des forêts de Papouasie-Nouvelle Guinée » affirme que les taux de DFD en PNG sont nettement plus élevés que précédemment signalés. Il suggère que plus de la moitié des forêts de PNG auront disparu ou seront endommagées au-delà de la récupération d’ici 2021.• Nous sommes d’avis que cette affirmation est erronée. Le rapport surestime la surface de la forêt primaire intacte, en 1972, et l’impact des pratiques traditionnelles d’utilisation des terres sur le couvert forestier. Une partie importante de ce que le rapport RSLUP considère comme de la déforestation fait partie d’un cycle traditionnel de dégagement pour l’agriculture, la jachère et la repousse ce qui s’est produit pendant des centaines d’années.• L’hypothèse que les zones touchées par l’exploitation forestière ou la culture itinérante vont inévitablement se dégrader et ne pas devenir de la forêt n’est pas non plus soutenue par l’observation des déboisement en PNG. Une proportion considérable des zones forestières déboisées récupérera des stocks de carbone après la récolte.• Il est fait valoir que l’utilisation traditionnelle des terres et les processus de régénération forestières doivent être pris en considération dans l’évaluation des émissions de gaz à effet de serre résultant du déboisement et des dégradations dans les pays ayant une histoire complexe de l’utilisation des terres comme la Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée.

Dynamics of fallow successions and introduction of robusta coffee in shifting cultivation areas in the lowlands of Papua New Guinea

The traditional shifting cultivation system in the lowlands of Papua New Guinea consists of mixed food crop gardens in which yams (Dioscorea spp.), bananas, taro (Colocasia esculenta) and sugarcane predominate. The cropping cycle is usually for 18 months, followed by a fallow cycle of up to 30 years. During the cropping cycle, two species of fruit trees, Pometia pinnata and Artocarpus altilis are also planted, the leaves of the former also being used as a mulch and green manure in yam cultivation. Fallow succession follows rather systematic patterns about which farmers have a thorough understanding. Robusta coffee, a cash-crop component, has been added to the system in some areas since the late 1950s. It is usually grown in permanent blocks, but is interplanted with Leucaena as shade. Food crops are planted in the establishment stage, bananas and Xantohosoma being retained even in mature coffee gardens. The system seems to be a potentially promising one. But very little quantitative information is available on the production and performance of the system and practically no systematic research has been undertaken. Since the Papua New Guinea fallow gardeners are willing to accept innovations, it will be appropriate and timely to undertake serious studies so that the system can be improved. A few items that merit immediate research attention are indicated.

Boserup and Brookfield and the Association between Population Density and Agricultural Intensity in Papua New Guinea

Data from a 1990–96 nationwide study of Papua New Guinea systems – the Mapping Agricultural Systems in PNG study (MASP) – is used to re-examine Brookfield with Harts (1971) findings on the association between agricultural intensity and population density in Papua New Guinea. A significant association exists between these variables, both within the MASP data, and within the agricultural systems examined by Brookfield with Hart, when the MASP data is applied to them. However, a large amount of variation exists in the data. Systems in which ‘mismatches’ occur between population density and agricultural intensity are found to be associated with small island environments, the substitution of purchased food for locally produced food, migration and high levels of child malnutrition. Child malnutrition may be one of the consequences of a failure to innovate and thus maintain food production. It is argued that Boserups (1965) model of agricultural transformation and Brookfields past work on intensification which he now downplays, continue to provide valuable insights into agricultural change in contemporary Papua New Guinea.

Subsistence agriculture and child growth in Papua New Guinea

Spatial statistical analyses of child anthropometric data were undertaken to assess the influence of systems of subsistence agriculture, in terms of staple foods and cash crops cultivated, on patterns of child growth in Papua New Guinea. These agricultural data explained between a quarter and half of the geographical variation in anthropometric growth indicators. Accounting for differences in altitude, relief and rainfall patterns, though explaining additional geographical variation, did not improve the predictions. Child growth was better in agriculture systems with cassava and sweet potato as staple crops, but worse in systems where banana, sago and taro were staple crops. Both the cultivation of all major cash crops, and sales of fish and food crops improved child growth. More intensive agricultural systems were associated with larger children indicating that the nutritional status of children benefited from intensification as well as from the introduction of cash crops into traditional subsistence systems.

Beyond intensification? Reconsidering agricultural transformations

Almost four decades since Ester Boserup’s ground-breaking introduction of the concept of intensification in agricultural production, what value does the concept still hold for researchers seeking to account for transformations in smallholder production in the newer nations of the Asia-Pacific region? In countries such as Papua New Guinea, smallholder production is still of paramount significance, in terms both of overall production, and of the proportion of the population dependent upon it. In November 1998 a group of international researchers with a common interest in agricultural transformation came together for a workshop at the Australian National University in Canberra. The meeting was organised partly to consider information from the recently completed Mapping Agricultural Systems in Papua New Guinea project (MASP), and also to reflect on what this information might contribute to the ongoing debate over the process of agricultural intensification. In recognition of his pioneering research on the geography of Papua New Guinea and on broader theories of agricultural intensification, Harold Brookfield was invited to present a keynote address. It is a mark of his exceptional influence as a thinker and his appetite for scholarship that Brookfield should continue to be integral to a debate organised in celebration of his work, and that he remains his own most stringent critic. As one participant observed, if we came to praise Harold Brookfield, he seemed determined to bury his younger self. Drawing on a review of recent international papers on agricultural change, Brookfield presented a sweeping critique of his own early work and of the usefulness of ‘intensification’ in understanding transformations of agriculture. Brookfield’s interest in intensification was initially stimulated by attempts to explain the highly uneven distribution of population in Papua New Guinea. He drew heavily on Ester Boserup’s (1965) revolutionary ideas about the role of population growth on the historical development of agriculture. In Brookfield with Hart (1971), itself a tour de force in the geographical literature, he proposed a process of intensification in Melanesia, defined as ‘essentially the degree to which technology is applied to

Book reviews including 'Empire of love: histories of France and the Pacific' by Matt K. Matsuda

This book is a comparative survey of the constitutions of South Asia, part of East Asia, South-East Asia and the Pacific Islands, indeed everywhere from India and China to the Cook Islands. The authors take us on a tour of constitutional issues, such as electoral systems, the legislature, the executive, the nature of representation, the role of the head of state, constitutional revision, the judiciary, the declaration of states of emergency and so on, and they draw examples drawn from a region so vast as to account for more than half the population of the world. In the process, the authors make important points. The constitutions of the Asia-Pacific, they say, should be seen as ‘among the final artefacts of the colonial era’ (p. 13), prescribing forms of government imposed from outside rather than those originating in local culture. The region, in their view, is characterised by three kinds of state: liberal-democratic, characteristic of former British and American colonial territories; socialist-democratic in China, North Korea, Vietnam and Laos, where constitutions have their beginning in the supremacy of the Communist party; and ethno-nationalist, as in Malaysia and Fiji, where the prior occupation of territory by indigenous groups is deemed to confer special rights and privileges. Some Asia-Pacific states, moreover, are subject to secessionism, because their boundaries were artificial at independence, and sub-groups see themselves as separate nations deserving their own states. As the authors emphasise, the Westminster system of government has weaknesses as well as strengths when applied in different cultural settings. Adversarial in conception, the system (unlike its American presidential cousin) allows for no-confidence motions to be passed against sitting governments, and has led to political instability in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu in particular. In some Pacific countries, the very process of modern politics divides communities accustomed to consensus as a way of ordering their affairs. The authors point out, perceptively, that ‘the processes of candidature, electioneering and, in general, running for political office can cause disunity at village level’ (p. 245). Then there is the vexed question of electoral systems. Translating the wishes of voters into numbers is not just a mathematical question, but one with considerable political significance, as Papua New Guinea’s troubled experience with first-past-the-post voting has demonstrated. Given enough candidates with roughly equal support, first-past-the-post can deliver victory to politicians opposed by nine in every ten voters. Some Asia-Pacific governments, the authors show, have considerable experience with suspending constitutional power by declaring martial law and states of emergency. An emergency may be declared in Fiji for as long as six months. President Ferdinand Marcos ruled the Philippines under martial law for 12 years, and Pakistan, Burma and Bangladesh are all countries where states of emergency have been almost as common as their absence. By the end of the book, the authors are not quite sure what this exercise in comparison adds up to, though they suggest that perhaps the future of constitutions in this part of the world may lie in influences from the growing body of international law, especially that to do with human rights. The hyper-comparative approach can be enlightening, but it can also be disconcerting. We read, for example, a paragraph on the Pakistan of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif followed by one on the Solomon Islands of Francis Hilly Billy, or a sentence on Tuvalu and Nauru preceding one on Burma. The only common thread in these discussions is the issue of constitutional arrangements. Yet, as the authors themselves admit, to examine constitutions in vacuo is bound to mislead: what matters everywhere, in the West as well as the developing world, is not so much what the rules prescribe as how they work. Politics precedes constitutions in explanatory power. Recognising this, the authors begin the book by promising an ‘inquiry that includes, in addition to the constitution and its associated arrangements, the operation of the system of government in practice; its historical evolution; the traditions on which it rests; and its social, political and economic context’ (p. 3). They are right about what they need to do, but, in a book of this scope and length, they cannot do it adequately for enough countries. And in the rush to fill in the details,