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Diffusing Risk and Building Resilience through Innovation: Reciprocal Exchange Relationships, Livelihood Vulnerability and Food Security amongst Smallholder Farmers in Papua New Guinea

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Abstract

This paper examines how oil palm migrant farmers in Papua New Guinea are responding to shortages of land for food gardening. Despite rapid population growth and planting nearly all of their land to oil palm, virtually all families continue to grow sufficient food for their families. The paper outlines the diverse range of adaptive strategies that households have employed to maintain food security, involving both intensification and innovation in farming systems. While gains from intensification have been significant and built resilience, they have been incremental, whereas innovation has been transformative and led to large gains in resilience. The adoption of more flexible land access arrangements on state leasehold land that ‘revive’ and adapt indigenous systems of land sharing and exchange that operated through kinship networks on customary land are innovative; they have increased the supply of land for food gardening thereby reducing risk for individual households and the broader smallholder community. The paper highlights the value of understanding farmer-driven innovations and the role of indigenous institutions and cultural values in sustaining and enhancing household food security.

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Notes

  1. Gullies and steep sections of the blocks were deemed unusable and therefore not counted as part of the original allocation of 6.07 ha, so this on-block land is additional to the 6.07 ha.

  2. In the 181 household survey, smallholders were asked questions about their gardens but they were not mapped. It is highly likely that a portion of their gardens classified as ‘wasblok’ were on land bordering their blocks and thus off-block.

  3. The 2 Ha stand (240 palms) is the standard replanting unit for smallholders as set by the industry.

  4. In nearby villages where land shortages were beginning to emerge on customary land, intercropping of immature oil palm with food crops had commenced in the past five years.

  5. These non-standard replant areas (1 ha instead of the standard 2 ha replant) are part of an ongoing trial by the authors and Hargy Oil Palms to improve food security by increasing the period that land is available on-block for food gardening.

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Funding

This study was funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (grant number ASEM/2012/072).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia

    Gina Koczberski, George N. Curry & Geraldine M. Tilden

  2. PNG University of Technology, Lae, Papua New Guinea

    Veronica Bue

  3. PNG Oil Palm Research Association, Kimbe, Papua New Guinea

    Emmanuel Germis & Steven Nake

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  1. Gina Koczberski
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  2. George N. Curry
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  3. Veronica Bue
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  4. Emmanuel Germis
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  5. Steven Nake
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  6. Geraldine M. Tilden
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Correspondence to George N. Curry.

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Koczberski, G., Curry, G.N., Bue, V. et al. Diffusing Risk and Building Resilience through Innovation: Reciprocal Exchange Relationships, Livelihood Vulnerability and Food Security amongst Smallholder Farmers in Papua New Guinea. Hum Ecol 46, 801–814 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-018-0032-9

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