Agriculture in Papua New Guinea has more than a 7,000 years old history, and developed out of pre-agricultural plant/food collecting and cultivation traditions of local hunter-gatherers.
[6] Anthropologists believe that agriculture was independently developed in New Guinea, occurring around the same time as its emergence in the Middle East and central China.
[6] These crops include taro, yam species, banana, breadfruit, sago, various green vegetables, fruits, and nuts.
[3][7] Between the 17th and 19th centuries, a small number of plant species, including sweet potato, cassava and tobacco have been brought from the Americas by Europeans and introduced to Indonesia from where they spread to New Guinea.
In the second part of the 19th century and especially after 1870 further crops have been introduced directly by Europeans, including beans, pumpkin, corn, watermelon, papaya, mangosteen, durian, orange, lemon, coffee, lime and guava.
[3] The introduction of the sweet potato to Papua New Guinea had a significant impact on its people, leading to major societal changes among those who adopted it as a food source.
[6] Societal changes resulting from the adoption of sweet potato cultivation can be found recorded in the Enga peoples oral tradition.
[3] By the 1930s, European documentation of Papua showed that the sweet potato had become the primary food source for almost all highland people, with the exception of those west of the Strickland River who still relied primarily on taro.
[3] While some people in Papua New Guinea believe that their ancestors always had access to sweet potatoes, others, such as those in the Tari Basin, have oral traditions detailing their previous reliance on taro.
[12] After oil palm, coffee is Papua New Guinea's second largest agricultural export, employing approximately 2.5 million people.
In Papua New Guinea, cocoa is the third largest cash crop and its marketing chain features competitive pricing at each stage.
[3] Plywood is made in Bulolo from hoop and klinki pine, while balsa wood is processed at four mills from village and plantation plots on the Gazelle Peninsula in East New Britain Province.
[3] As stated in a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), "Village production depends on day-to-day domestic relationships between men and women.
[3] Organizations such as the FAO are working with the government of Papua New Guinea to promote gender equality in agriculture and to empower women farmers.
[3] Hela, Jiwaka, Madang, Morobe, National Capital District, New Ireland, West New Britain, Western Highlands