Guinea

Climate change and food security in Africa’s drylands

Papua New Guinea food price bulletin: October 2024

This report provides an analysis of food price trends for the third quarter of 2024, covering the period from July to September. During this quarter, two rounds of data were collected per month from Kokopo, Banz, and Port Moresby in July and August. However, in September, only one round of data was collected from all markets except Port Moresby (no data collected). Only one round of data was collected in Goroka for each month in the 3rd quarter. In Lae, food price data was collected only once in August for the entire third quarter. These data gaps affect the comparability of the reported price trend and caution should be used to draw conclusions on price fluctuations. The graphs in this bulletin show price changes within the third quarter and compare the third quarter prices with the second quarter of 2024, between April and June. To access the complete food price dataset and interactive food price graphing tool, please visit our website.

Poultry value chain and cluster development in Papua New Guinea: Insights from a recent field study

Despite poultry being lauded as a relatively affordable source of protein and micronutrients in many lower-income countries, chicken meat is twice as expensive in PNG compared to nearby Southeast Asian countries. Recent rural household consumption data collected by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) suggests that an important share of households do not eat enough protein to meet healthy dietary guidelines (Schmidt et al., 2024). Poultry, along with fish and pork, are the three most important animal-source protein foods in the country, yet these products remain financially prohibitive to a large share of the population. This paper explores the unique challenges and opportunities within PNG’s poultry sector using a “growth diagnostic” approach (pioneered by Rodrik, 2010). Through interviews with key stakeholders across the poultry value chain, we found that while high feed costs persist as a significant challenge, poultry farmers have yet to adopt additional cost-reduction strategies, such as establishing small-scale regional feed mills, utilizing local feed ingredients, and diversifying feed and input imports. An intriguing puzzle of PNG’s poultry sector is the limited number of small-scale producers successfully transitioning to medium-scale operations. This primarily stems from high transport costs and restricted access to input and sales markets. The challenges of marketing chicken in PNG have received less attention than production. Drawing on the experiences of successful models in other countries and considering the specific situation of PNG’s poultry sector, fostering poultry production and processing clusters (e.g., in Lae suburban areas) emerges as a potential strategy to address production, transportation, and marketing constraints. By concentrating production, value chain clustering can enhance access to essential services (e.g. slaughtering and cold storage), improve market access, and reduce overall costs. While clustering holds promise for PNG’s poultry value chain, its success hinges upon joint action between the public and private sectors, as well as NGOs operating within the value chain.