Market diversification and sweetpotato processing in Papua New Guinea: A pre-feasibility study

Abstract

The development of an agri-food processing sector has the potential to speed up the process of rural development as well as the industrialisation of an economy. Sweetpotato is the main staple crop in Papua New Guinea (PNG), and is grown by smallholder farmers across the country. As a consequence, the socio-economic impact on rural communities could be significant if an efficient sweetpotato processing sector can be established. This impact could be even greater when the associated technology spills over to other root and tuber crops (e.g. cassava, yam, taro, etc). The objectives of this study were to identify market diversification and processing opportunities for sweetpotato in PNG.