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In Brief 2017/19

Food Security in the Torricelli Foothills of Papua New Guinea: Can Sago Continue to Sustain the Increasing Population?John Sowei

Since around 1980, the population of Papua New Guin-

ea (PNG) has been growing at an average rate of 2.7% per

annum — doubling about every 25 years. People in rural areas

grow 85% of the food they consume, growing it on their own

land, using their own labour. Twelve per cent of rural people

eat sago as their staple food (Bourke and Allen 2009). This In

Brief describes PhD research from the University of PNG that

investigates whether sago production can be increased to

meet the food demands of a rapidly growing population.

Sago (Metroxylon sagu Rottb.) is a large palm that grows

in swamps and wetland areas. In PNG, sago is produced from

planted and wild palms growing in large areas of continuous

swamp (swamp sago), and from numerous scattered small

areas of palms planted in upland environments (upland sago).

Starch is extracted from the palms by a number of techniques,

all of which involve cutting the palm down, splitting open the

trunk or stripping the outer bark from it, chopping the pith to

pulverise it, and leaching the starch from the pith. The starch

can be cooked and eaten immediately, or it can be stored

for relatively long periods by drying it to a flour or by using

anaerobic storage. Sago starch contains 83% carbohydrate

(Peters 1957 and Hodges et al. 1947). To avoid malnutrition, it

is critical that people who have sago as a staple eat additional,

nutrient-rich food.

The Mapping Agriculture Systems in PNG (MASP) project,1

using 2000 National Census figures, found approximately 1.4

million people in PNG — just over one-third of the total rural

population — use sago as a food. Twelve per cent of the rural

population or 460,000 people eat sago as their most important

food, either as a single staple or as a co-staple with bananas

or a root crop. Of those who use sago as a staple food, about

184,000 (40%) produce swamp sago and 276,000 (60%) pro-

duce upland sago. Thus, upland sago is the most important

source of food for 7% of the total PNG rural population. More

than half (55%) of these people are located in the foothills of

East and West Sepik provinces.

The research reported here investigates the impact of

population growth on upland sago production in a case study

village of Rangwe in Nuku District, West Sepik Province. The

population in Nuku District has grown from 20,787 to 69,335

in the 32 years from 1980 to 2012, at an average rate of

3.76% per year. The Rangwe village population doubled from

200 to 404 between 1980 and 2016.

Previous studies to assess the potential for commercial

sago production in PNG (Flach 1981; Shimoda and Power

2010; Sowei 2008) found that production of starch from palms

in swamps could be at least doubled with improved manage-

ment: planting high-yielding varieties, removing swamp forest

trees, thinning palms, and cleaning dead fronds from palms.

These studies suggest that palms in swamps are not being

fully exploited for subsistence, and that swamp sago produc-

tion can meet the demands of a growing population.

Few similar studies have been conducted on upland sago

(see, for example, Ohtsuka 1983), but it is presumed that

because upland sago is planted in restricted environments,

once an entire area has been planted in sago, further increases

in production will be severely limited or impossible. This study

investigates whether this is true and, if it is, how people for

whom sago is a staple food would deal with the problem. It is

presumed that they will be forced to increasingly cultivate root

crops and bananas. This study draws upon the research of

Patricia Townsend (2003). Although she studied swamp sago

producers, she made a number of observations about how

all sago producers could intensify sago production if required.

A 10-year study I conducted from 2006 to 2016 of sago

planting and production, and the cultivation of yams and

bananas at Rangwe village found that there is demographic

pressure on the sago resource, and that the area of gardens

increased by 45% over the study period.2 An assessment of

sago palms at different growth stages showed that less than

2% of mature palms were available for processing and the

number of immature palms has declined. This suggests that

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In Brief 2017/19 State, Society & Governance in Melanesia

palms were being harvested before they were properly mature, and is an indication of a shortage of sago.

When the observations are analysed by household, it becomes apparent that not all households are short of sago and not all households have increased the area of their gar-dens. But the relationship between the amount of sago avail-able to a household and the area of land they are cultivating is far from perfect.

Around 48% of families have not increased their area under garden crop in response to a declining sago resource. A number of possible reasons exist. Some households have access to land that is less than ideal for sago production, but have planted sago on it anyway; some have accessed sago from within their extended family; some have used money from cocoa-growing to buy palms to process from households with excess palms; and some households are headed by men who are reluctant to do the harder work that clearing secondary forest to plant gardens requires. They want to continue to use sago, supplemented by hunting feral animals and collecting leafy vegetables from forest orchards, for as long as possible. There has probably been a change in the sago varieties grown from those valued for taste and texture to faster maturing and higher starch producing palms.

This research has found that there will be increasing numbers of people living along the Sepik foothills who will not depend on sago as a staple food but for whom sago will continue to provide a source of food security. The implication is that more food will have to be produced from agriculture, which raises a separate concern about whether the natural resources of this area will be able to sustain an intensification of the existing shifting cultivation systems.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the three independent review-ers whose remarks assisted in the preparation of the final version of this paper.

Author Notes

John Sowei is a PhD candidate in the School of Natural and

Physical Sciences, Discipline of Environmental Science and

Geography, University of Papua New Guinea. He was a State,

Society and Governance in Melanesia Pacific Visitor from May to

July 2017. Email: jwsowei@gmail.com.

Endnotes

1. The MASP project identified, documented, and mapped food production systems for the whole of PNG. It was funded by AusAID and the Government of PNG.

2. This study was conducted for the author’s PhD thesis.

References

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