Strengthening the E-Agriculture Environment and Developing Ict-Mediated Agricultural Solutions for Papua New Guinea - TCP/PNG/3605
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Agriculture is the mainstay of Papua New Guinea's (PNG) rural economy, with 85 percent of its population (of over 8 million) depending on the agriculture sector for their livelihoods. The sector has a great potential to improve national food security, nutrition and income-earning opportunities; create employment; reduce poverty; and enhance socio-economic development. However, attention needs to be directed towards developing appropriate policy, strategies, resources and activities that improve livelihoods and foster rural development. Given both the observed decline in the conventional extension system and emerging global challenges, agricultural development in PNG is becoming more dependent on strengthening linkages between stakeholders and improving access to information and knowledge. Importantly, emerging information and communication technology (ICT) tools and applications offer promising opportunities to promote communication, information sharing and general national development. Many actors in the sector have taken advantage of these opportunities but cannot progress further without favourable guidelines and policy, appropriate infrastructure, funding support and the underlying technical skills. The Government of PNG has expressed a need to improve the research–extension–farmer continuum so that it can both better serve farmers and rural communities involved in agriculture and make relevant information more readily available through an appropriate delivery medium. The availability, accessibility and adaptability (commonly referred to as AAA) of crucial livelihood-related information are essential to sustainable farming. Yet, the existing information gap between agricultural extension efforts, outreach services and farmers has been widely acknowledged as a barrier to sustainable food production. New ICTs provide a way to bridge this information gap