Improving marketing efficiency, postharvest management and value addition of sweetpotato in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

The overall aim of this project was to improve the livelihoods of farmers and other participants in the sweetpotato supply chain in PNG, and the potato supply chain in Australia, by improving marketing efficiency, postharvest management, and value addition. The project aimed to address issues in heavy product losses and high costs of marketing in long distance sweetpotato marketing from the PNG highlands to coastal markets. The project began with a detailed mapping of the social, economic, and technical components of the PNG sweetpotato supply chains. While the social and economic components focused on relational, institutional, and cost issues, the technical component focused on issues related to postharvest management and value addition. Supply chain mapping was done through a series of stakeholder consultations from farm to market, and consignment trials. The results indicated that there were serious concerns regarding packaging (bags too big), postharvest handling (high product losses), transport infrastructure (high costs, poor roads and no specialised transport system), and supply chain coordination (no collaboration or communication between potential partners). For women, there were gender-specific issues related to personal safety, poor market facilities, and inequality in the division of labour and the distribution of income within the household. Technical issues were addressed through packaging trials, a curing trial, disease identification to find locally appropriate methods to reduce produce losses, and an exploration of options for sweetpotato processing. Other issues were addressed through: financial literacy training and linking farmers to financial institutions to improve farmers' access to credit, finding ways to consolidate sweetpotato bags and link farmers to transporters and buyers, and providing training in marketing and financial literacy to improve women's participation in sweetpotato marketing.