Diffusing Risk and Building Resilience through Innovation: Reciprocal Exchange Relationships, Livelihood Vulnerability and Food Security amongst Smallholder Farmers in Papua New Guinea

This paper examines how oil palm migrant farmers in Papua New Guinea are responding to shortages of land for food gardening. Despite rapid population growth and planting nearly all of their land to oil palm, virtually all families continue to grow sufficient food for their families. The paper outlin...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Koczberski, G., Curry, George, Bue, V., Germis, E., Nake, S., Tilden, G.
Format: Journal Article
Published: 2018
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/73477
_version_ 1848763023869607936
author Koczberski, G.
Curry, George
Bue, V.
Germis, E.
Nake, S.
Tilden, G.
author_facet Koczberski, G.
Curry, George
Bue, V.
Germis, E.
Nake, S.
Tilden, G.
author_sort Koczberski, G.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper examines how oil palm migrant farmers in Papua New Guinea are responding to shortages of land for food gardening. Despite rapid population growth and planting nearly all of their land to oil palm, virtually all families continue to grow sufficient food for their families. The paper outlines the diverse range of adaptive strategies that households have employed to maintain food security, involving both intensification and innovation in farming systems. While gains from intensification have been significant and built resilience, they have been incremental, whereas innovation has been transformative and led to large gains in resilience. The adoption of more flexible land access arrangements on state leasehold land that ‘revive’ and adapt indigenous systems of land sharing and exchange that operated through kinship networks on customary land are innovative; they have increased the supply of land for food gardening thereby reducing risk for individual households and the broader smallholder community. The paper highlights the value of understanding farmer-driven innovations and the role of indigenous institutions and cultural values in sustaining and enhancing household food security.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T10:56:52Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-73477
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T10:56:52Z
publishDate 2018
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-734772020-05-18T01:20:42Z Diffusing Risk and Building Resilience through Innovation: Reciprocal Exchange Relationships, Livelihood Vulnerability and Food Security amongst Smallholder Farmers in Papua New Guinea Koczberski, G. Curry, George Bue, V. Germis, E. Nake, S. Tilden, G. This paper examines how oil palm migrant farmers in Papua New Guinea are responding to shortages of land for food gardening. Despite rapid population growth and planting nearly all of their land to oil palm, virtually all families continue to grow sufficient food for their families. The paper outlines the diverse range of adaptive strategies that households have employed to maintain food security, involving both intensification and innovation in farming systems. While gains from intensification have been significant and built resilience, they have been incremental, whereas innovation has been transformative and led to large gains in resilience. The adoption of more flexible land access arrangements on state leasehold land that ‘revive’ and adapt indigenous systems of land sharing and exchange that operated through kinship networks on customary land are innovative; they have increased the supply of land for food gardening thereby reducing risk for individual households and the broader smallholder community. The paper highlights the value of understanding farmer-driven innovations and the role of indigenous institutions and cultural values in sustaining and enhancing household food security. 2018 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/73477 10.1007/s10745-018-0032-9 restricted
spellingShingle Koczberski, G.
Curry, George
Bue, V.
Germis, E.
Nake, S.
Tilden, G.
Diffusing Risk and Building Resilience through Innovation: Reciprocal Exchange Relationships, Livelihood Vulnerability and Food Security amongst Smallholder Farmers in Papua New Guinea
title Diffusing Risk and Building Resilience through Innovation: Reciprocal Exchange Relationships, Livelihood Vulnerability and Food Security amongst Smallholder Farmers in Papua New Guinea
title_full Diffusing Risk and Building Resilience through Innovation: Reciprocal Exchange Relationships, Livelihood Vulnerability and Food Security amongst Smallholder Farmers in Papua New Guinea
title_fullStr Diffusing Risk and Building Resilience through Innovation: Reciprocal Exchange Relationships, Livelihood Vulnerability and Food Security amongst Smallholder Farmers in Papua New Guinea
title_full_unstemmed Diffusing Risk and Building Resilience through Innovation: Reciprocal Exchange Relationships, Livelihood Vulnerability and Food Security amongst Smallholder Farmers in Papua New Guinea
title_short Diffusing Risk and Building Resilience through Innovation: Reciprocal Exchange Relationships, Livelihood Vulnerability and Food Security amongst Smallholder Farmers in Papua New Guinea
title_sort diffusing risk and building resilience through innovation: reciprocal exchange relationships, livelihood vulnerability and food security amongst smallholder farmers in papua new guinea
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/73477