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GLOBAL VILLAGE: A VILLAGE OF THE FUTURE FOR PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Anthony P. Power

July 2001, Papua New Guinea

In the last 25 years Papua New Guineans have been exposed to a vast array of technologies from the modern world. The colonial government put in place an economic model supported by modern technology akin to that being employed in Australia. In some cases PNG was actually in advance of Australia. For example the then Post and Telecommunications Corporation introduced ISD (International Subscriber Dialing) prior to it being available in Australia.

Unfortunately the economic base in PNG to support the infrastructure so established was insufficient and poor management and poor maintenance has led to a rundown of just about everything in the country. Today our main highways are nightmares and rural roads have disappeared into the bush.

Our education system has exclusively trained people for the modern sector. The economy has not grown to meet the demand for jobs so tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of people are disillusioned, semi educated but under valued in an economic sense, living in the villages or camping with wantoks in the towns. Simple calculations of the number of school leavers and university graduands will show that there are no jobs for them. About 2000 students graduated from our universities and tertiary colleges in first quarter 2001. Would 10% of them get jobs?

What is the alternative? The alternative clearly must be to make our people much more productive in the village by diversifying and strengthening the village economy. A very wide range of appropriate technology that is relatively cheap is available for village people.

One of the dilemmas facing PNG today is that the level of development in our rural villages has been stagnant for decades. Is this because people are inherently satisfied with a "laid back Melanesian lifestyle"? Have they no need of cash? Are they too lazy to earn cash? Have the opportunities for earning cash been too restricted in scope and often seen as too little return for the work required? Has the failure of all extension services in the country, consequent on national government starving the provincial governments of funds, been a critical handicap to village producers? Is it because efforts to produce items for sale in the village come to naught because of the high transport costs to market because of disappearing roads and high fuel costs? Or is it a combination of all these factors?

The "laid back Melanesian lifestyle" is often in the eye of the beholder. Is it so laid back from the point of view of the villager? The main preoccupation of village people is to supply their own food, tools and shelter. Hunting, fishing and gathering are time consuming occupations. Often people have to move to bush camps to take the pressure off the area near the village and near gardens. This disrupts possible activities that require fulltime care such as care of livestock and care of intensive home gardens. Intensive care of small livestock in the village could replace the need for unproductive hunting. Intensive gardens, permaculture could take the pressure off cutting new bush for gardens. So these are related.

Opportunities for making cash in the village have been restricted to the cash crops for the world commodity markets. Fluctuations in prices received for these commodities are reflected in production levels as people will not harvest their crops if they deem the return on their efforts not to be sufficiently rewarded. Why should they work hard to provide cheap products to the developed country consumers? Has the price of copra cocoa, coffee kept pace with the price of Suzuki outboards, Toyota trucks, zoom and diesel? Certainly not!

The obvious failure of extension services throughout PNG may be a contributing factor in the decline of villages. It is fashionable by some national politicians to blame this on the provincial government system. The reality is that functions were transferred to the provinces while the funds remained in Waigani. Perhaps a more telling reason for the decline is that owing to the unattractiveness of the fluctuating commodity prices the extension officers would find it hard to influence village producers who had already made up their minds regarding the economies of production. Services still in demand in the villages such as the provision of planting materials and small livestock have all been cancelled due to lack of funding. With nothing further to offer the village people the officers stay in town.

The high cost of transport is no doubt a major factor in holding back village development. When it becomes a nightmare to traverse so called national highways one can imagine what the feeder roads are like. This facet of governance alone has meant that people have been discouraged from making any effort to earn cash in the village. Because we in PNG naturally and uncritically follow the Australian economic model we have not been able to provide cheaper and more appropriate solutions to some of our transport problems. Take one example. In Malaysia steel-hulled riverboats ply the rivers. These boats are fabricated on the riverbank under a shade cloth and feature inboard diesel engines recycled from broken-down vehicles ply the rivers. In PNG we have banana boats with expensive outboards fed on very expensive zoom. Faster, but totally uneconomic except for very short distances.

It cannot be that village people don’t need cash as every wantok in employment in town can attest. With the possible exception of coffee in the Highlands, three decades of cash crop production of internationally traded agricultural commodities has not brought significant improvement in village economies. There must be other dimensions that we are lacking. There are several consequences to these conditions that should give PNG some possible models for village development.

While it is a truism to say that village development must be the result of bottom up awareness and felt needs etc., the fact remains that it is also true to say that "if you can’t envision the future you can’t aspire to it", let alone achieve it. This paper is an attempt to provide and justify a vision for the modern PNG village – the global village in the new millennium.

In the PNG villages today we all want to be self-reliant and independent from other families so we attend to all our needs ourselves. This means that we all produce the same products so that there will be little demand for our products in the village and when we go to market outside the village we are all competing against each other for the limited market. When I have plenty of something because of a good season then everyone else has plenty. When we have an abundant harvest and are lucky in hunting or fishing we immediately share everything we have with out relatives and fellow villagers with the understanding that this generosity will be repaid in kind when the beneficiaries have a similar surplus. The lack of a well developed tradition of trading within the village leads in some areas even to a sense of shame so that when goods are available for trade they are usually given away. Sometimes this is reciprocated but often not.

For example, one village man and his wife were specialist producers of good quality tobacco, cured properly and stored in betel nut leaf-sheath bundles. Everyone recognized their "brus" as being superior and abundant even throughout the entire year. It was understood that that the couple would sell the bundles outside the village. However village people themselves expected to be able to get a handout if their less successful (usually less energetic) efforts led to shortage later in the year. This is a significant disincentive to the specialist increasing production. Thus lack of specialization and intra-village trading stifles the village economies.

A cash income can help provide food security in the village. It takes some of the pressure off villagers whose prime preoccupation is the provision of food on a daily basis. This anxiety is brought about because there is no real development of storable food products in traditional Melanesian economy. Adaptations in place of storage included

• Some storage of harvested crops such as the yam houses in Milne Bay Province and after harvest clump storage of kau kau, yam and taro in the Highlands.
• storage in the ground by serial planting e.g. kau kau
• Food crops with a long life in the ground going into the dry season e.g. bananas and tapioca (e.g. the Motuans)
• Sago stored in floating logs to be processed as needed (Sepik)
• Sago stored as smoke dried powder or under water in earthenware post (Sepik)
• The ever reliable food from coconuts

Even with these developments of some kind of storage of staples there was no long term storage of any equivalent to wheat, maize or rice, the foundation stones for all urban economies. In addition to this there is the ever present need to hunt and gather protein sources and greens to supplement the staples.

Compare this to the list of storable foods developed in Mesopotamia: wheat, barley, dried fruits including dates, grapes and figs, pulses, olive oil, preserved olives plus meat and milk (for cheese) from domestic livestock. In South East Asia in the same climatic zone as PNG, rice, maize and pulses provide the storable grains while oil extraction from coconuts and peanuts provide the storable cooking oil and stockfeed for the small domestic livestock. There is little dependence on hunting and gathering other than fishing resulting in well developed food security.

In PNG instead of developing a range of possible activities that will ensure food security we adapt to the annual taim hangri by abandoning our villages and seeking refuge in bush camps etc. This has the effect of weakening our villages and prohibiting the possibility of caring for small livestock and intensive gardens adequately. Furthermore we are ever exposed to the devastating famine caused by el nino or la nina events as recently experienced in 1997/8 or devastating frosts that occur in the Highlands from time to time. Moreover when we have a famine we are almost totally dependent on foreign aid to solve the problem. This is totally unsatisfactory for a nation so blessed with natural resources as PNG.

In PNG we have a subsistence economy spinning out slightly into the national economy but mostly into the internationally economy of traded commodities. Our village economy is a "merry-go-round" economy where cash from trading international commodities comes in to the village and then straight out again with little circulation in the village itself. We desperately need to develop the buffer of a sound economy at the village level. This economy would involve specialization within the village and would involve exchanges within the village and with the nearest town before entering into the wider national and international economy.

There are some striking differences between villages in South East Asia and Papua New Guinea. In South East Asia there are many businesses and products in the village supporting a robust village economy. This economy then spins out to embrace the national and international economy.

• In South East Asia there is a degree of specialization that fosters exchange at the village level.
  • This means that when cash is earned by export from the village it can be used again and again at the village level before it goes off to pay for externalities like school fees and fuel etc.
• Farmers produce in quantity for sale, not just surplus to their own requirements.
  • One farmer brings twenty dozen eggs to market (Not a half dozen or so or two megapode eggs!)
  • Another brings two dozen chickens or ducklings (Not one or two!)
  • Another brings 200 guava, rambutan etc (Not five or ten!)

• Storable grain (principally rice but also maize and pulses such as soy and mung beans and peanuts) plays a major part in the village economy.
  • These storable food products for man and animals bridge the seasonal gaps and provide opportunities for raising small animals in proper yards and not free ranging. (In PNG villages, dogs eat more hens’ eggs than people do!)
  • A variety of value-added, nutritious, storable food products are produced from these grains both for home use and for sale. Such as biscuits or tempe from soy beans in Indonesia.
  • Managing and using grain crops involves storage, processing and cooking knowhow we don’t have in PNG.

• People are generally more settled, relying less on hunting and gathering (with some exceptions such as in Borneo).
  • This enables management of settled village businesses such as
    • Rice mill
    • Oil expeller
    • Sago mill
    • Sugar making from arenga, nypa or coconut palm or sugarcane
    • Raising of small livestock ( pigs, chickens, rabbits, ducks, tilapia)
  • Settled agriculture then intensifies into permaculture

This discussion is not a plea to resist the global economy but rather to put PNG villagers in a better position to be involved in the global economy. A diverse village economy will assist villagers to pay their own way to participate in the global economy and will provide security by better management of the vagaries of the global commodity market. Some basic principles to be adopted in the following proposal include:

• A diversification and intensification of food production at the village level to reduce dependency on hunting and gathering and reduce forest clearance. This will increase food security, improve diets and aid conservation.
• There will be no attempt to replace durable manufactured goods sold in the village from outside with village products. (E.g. as tools pots and pans lamps clothes.)
• There will be an emphasis on exploiting the fact that distance creates huge costs for products in the village by producing value-added products at village level that can easily compete with imported products. (E.g. food products, soap and fuel).
• Diversification will require a substantial increase in skills but will generate cash income (employment) for many people at village level in new activities.
• Specialization in marketing (middlemen such as has developed in coffee industry) will free up huge manpower for further production.
• Appropriate technology will include high technology such as solar power, satellite dishes, internet access etc.

Diversification of the village economy can be accomplished by pursuing a diverse range of money making opportunities for the villagers beyond the production of one or two export commodities. The following section deals with some of these opportunities. Actual possibilities of any of these opportunities taking place in any one place will be partially determined by

• Agronomic conditionalities of soil, land form, rainfall, altitude, crop suitability and distance from the sea etc. For example, in the Highlands there will be no opportunity to explore the diversification of coconut products. Peanuts could fill this gap partially providing cooking oil and stock feed cake.
• Location in terms of access by road or boat to local, provincial, national and world markets.
• Access to knowhow, materials and finance.
• Local leadership

In the mid 1970’s two donor funded appropriate technology workshops were held, one in Ukarumpa and one in Vudal. A wide range of technologies was demonstrated and people were absolutely fascinated by what could be accomplished with so little input in the village. Institutions were established to try to provide information, research and training to disseminate this technology. These included the South Pacific Appropriate Technology Foundation, SPATF (now defunct and absorbed into the Department of Commerce); Appropriate Technology Devlopment Unit (now the Appropriate Technology Community Development Institute, ATCDI, at Unitech); Village Equipment Suppliers (now defunct); and Lik Lik Buk which having published several editions is being transformed again as a series of pamphlets at ATCDI Unitech in Lae.

How is it that there has been so little uptake of appropriate technology in the last 25 years?

• Perhaps it was too early in the 1970’s to try to say to village people, that with hard work and some imagination and affordable technology, they had the power to create a quality of life in the village that was far superior to that enjoyed in the towns. (Indeed the envy of the ever more overcrowded, polluted, violent, alienating world) They aspired for themselves or through their children an exit from the village to the modern sector where they would enjoy the benefits of the money economy. They wanted money to access the cargo. There was no concept that they could produce their own cargo and make money at the same time. There was no other vision on offer.
• When the abovementioned institutions faded away, the only sources of practical education for some of the appropriate technologies were agricultural colleges, vocational centres and a variety of NGOs. Extension from these institutions is negligible so rate of adoption of new technologies is negligible.
• Transport to local and provincial markets over the years became difficult and expensive so that village produce either traditional or innovative could not be sold economically ruling out any incentive for diversification of the village economy. This could have been and may still be the biggest single disincentive.
• In many places a lack of a tradition of specialization and intra-village cash trading resulting in lack of ready market would have inhibited innovations.

Is it worthwhile trying to re-establish institutions to extend and demonstrate the range of technologies that could diversify and strengthen village economies? Would there be any more chance of success today? Perhaps so. Attitudes of young mature people in the village today seem to be far more conducive to adoption of innovations if they are able to make cash. Also young people in the village today want more cash.

The following table indicates a range of money making activities that could be adopted in many villages. These types of activities would confer the following benefits in a village:

• gainful employment and cash income.
• food security
• an interesting and exciting village environment
• en enviable quality of life measured by a range indicators
• a sense of self esteem and independence

Ways to make money in the village by diversifying the village economy

Value added coconut products at the village level

PNG presently exports thousands of tonnes of copra, coconut oil, and copra meal stockfeed to the world markets in a manner that precludes use of any of the export products at the village level. Opportunities for making use of some of the product at the village level before contributing to export are ignored. Selling coconut products onto the world market in order to bring cash incomes into the villages is not the most efficient use of this valuable resource. Income from the sales is immediately sent out of the village to pay for school fees, soap, kerosene etc. while the village economy receives no boost at all.

Villages that have abundant coconuts have the opportunity for value adding part of their production in a way that will diversify the village economy, improve nutrition and food security and keep money circulating in the village economy.

Very affordable technology is available today to enable extraction of coconut oil at the village level from freshly grated coconut meat resulting in very high quality oil and a stockfeed cake. The oil has a very low free fatty acid content and a long shelf life. It can be used for the following products:

1. Cooking oil for deep frying of a range of food products from ripe cooking bananas to banana chips to sago pops etc.
2. Diesel engine fuel
   Diesel engines run perfectly well on coconut oil. The engine is started with diesel and when hot switched to coconut oil and then finished off with diesel to clean out the injectors and prevent any gum build up.

3. Very high quality soap can be cheaply manufactured in the village from coconut oil. The main outside ingredient being imported to the village is caustic soda.
4. High quality oil is also used for cosmetic purposes in many coastal areas.
5. The coconut cake taken out of the press after oil extraction is an excellent nutritious component for stockfeed for pigs, chickens, ducks, rabbits and fish. It would need to be mixed with some meal made from sago or cracked corn or dried and cracked kau kau or tapioca chips.

Manufacture of these products in the village would provide an excellent cash income for a number of households. Products could be sold in the village town or provincial markets depending on cost of transport.

Villages with an abundance of coconuts would still make copra for their surplus while villages with less coconuts would be encouraged to plant more to meet the demand for village products.

DIVERSIFICATION OF VILLAGE ECONOMY BY SPECIALIZATION

Design brief: A possible ideal village for the 21^st Century

The following is a vision for what a self-sufficient modern village for PNG might look like in the 21^st century.

Design parameters might include

• Base case flat ground with no space constraints
• Village population 300 to 500 plus, including men women and children
• Village based wokabaut somil available for durable timber or treated timber supplies
• Road or motorboat access to rural towns and provincial capital
• Village has a functioning management system, possibly Village Development Committee, Village Development Ltd., bigman or chief.
• Utilities, existing or to be developed, to include

• reticulated water
• solar power at Village Centre and possible separate solar lights at other locations (Genset for specific activities like the village workshop)
• septic tanks and/or Ventilated Improved Pit (VIP) toilets

PNGBUAI project information manager:
Dr. John Evans
SPCenCIID (South Pacific Centre for Communications and Information In Development) and University of Papua New Guinea

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