PNGUoT & TRUKAI SMART FARMER’S TRAINING POSITIVELY INCREASES PARTICIPANT COUNT

SMART FARMER TRAINING INCREASES PARTICIPANT COUNT

By Malai JOHN | Intern

A total of 100 local rice farmers from the Momase and Highlands regions have undergone their Trukai Smart Farmer training program at the Papua New Guinea University of Technology (PNGUoT), which was conducted over the past two weeks. The aim of this program is to train and educate local farmers about new ways and methods of farming, specifically promoting the new irrigation rice farming system.


Trukai Industries Smart Farmer Project Site Manager at PNGUoT, Hansel Mainuwec, said this training will empower local rice farmers to grow and produce rice in their gardens. He stated that although rice is a staple food, it is currently not a staple crop in PNG.

“We are starting off with these farmers to go back and start planting rice, and we are emphasizing irrigated rice farming to crop rice with water instead of dryland rice farming. Irrigated rice farming yields more than dryland farming.”

“The irrigated rice farming system will help local production of rice and make rice the staple crop in the garden,” said Mr. Mainuwec.


More than 500 rice farmers have undergone this training conducted at PNGUoT and Pacific Adventist University (PAU) since its inception.

The Trukai- PNGUoT Smart Farmer training program officially commenced in 2023, following the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) , which promotes academic and professional collaborative rice research and training.
The modules taught during the training are jointly developed by Trukai and PNGUoT’s School of Agriculture.

A lecturer from PNGUoT’s School of Agriculture and trainer, Dr. Spencer Poloma, said the interest from farmers has been increasing each year, which indicates that the training has impacted many farmers, and they see the importance of irrigated rice farming.
“We got this climate change, which causes variations in rainfall patterns that are not normal compared to what they already know, and they also see that rainfall is not optimum now to support the growth of rice and other crops, so they are taking this keen interest in irrigated rice farming,” said Dr. Spencer Poloma.

Dr. Poloma acknowledged the partnership with Trukai, saying PNGUoT is happy to be part of an effort that is making a positive contribution.


So far, 385 farmers have been trained under this program at PNGUoT, from the first to the fourth batch, and this year, they are looking forward to graduating more participants.