Australian researchers head $5m plan to revive PNG's cocoa industry

Melbourne’s La Trobe University will lead a five-year, $5 million effort to help Papua New Guinea’s ailing cocoa industry.

Funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the work will help an industry that has accounted for almost 20% of PNG’s agricultural exports and directly affects the livelihood of 150,000 small-holder farming families. 

Research Fellow in the Department of Ecology, Environment and Evolution Philip Keane said that cocoa production — the main driver of rural development in lowland PNG since the 1960s — has declined by 80% over the last decade, following the arrival of a serious insect pest from Indonesia.

“In recent decades most cocoa plantings have become overgrown, resulting in poor management, underharvesting and heavy losses due to pests and diseases,” he said. “This is a problem worldwide, with cocoa production in low-intensity cropping systems lagging behind the rapidly expanding demand for chocolate.”

Dr Keane said PNG scientists involved in the project have already developed outstanding new cocoa clones that are smaller, high yielding and resistant to pests and diseases. They have also devised more intensive ways of management of smaller trees to control pests and diseases and obtain high yields, as well as new post-harvest processing methods to improve cocoa quality.

“This is a socioeconomic rather than a purely technical project; we already know how to increase cocoa yield 10-fold. The main requirement now is to have these innovations adopted widely on farms.”

Dr Keane said the team would train cocoa farmers who will then return to their home villages to train and provide day-to-day support for other farmers on a fee-for-service basis.

“We are going to test and promote new cocoa farming systems,” Dr Keane said. “These will integrate food crops, livestock and high-value tree crops such as coconuts, fruit and local nut trees, which can provide shade for cocoa trees and additional farm produce.”

La Trobe Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Keith Nugent said the work was part of the university’s research into solving global issues of food security, water and the environment.