Some of the data provided to the government in the space of agriculture and research are “not real”.
The National Agriculture Research Institute says this is because their statistics and database are poorly kept.
During Tuesday’s visit to the NARI head office in Morobe Province, Minister for International Trade and Investment, Richard Maru, was given a rundown of their challenges.
NARI Director General, Dr Nelson Simbiken, outlined funding constraints and the lack of government support in the area of research and development.
“NARI is the custodian; to generate, gather, store and disseminate information,” said Dr Simbiken. “Right now, agriculture statistics and database are poorly kept. We’re still backtracking on data and some of the data we provide to the government is not real. It’s theoretical. We need real data. And that’s why NARI is endeavouring to make sure we have good information gathered through the digitisation of our information.
“We’re heading in that direction.
“We are thankful to the Morobe Provincial Government, who has promised us to build our national information data centre here at Bubia.”
Dr Simbiken told Minister Maru that like other critical institutions in the country, NARI remains underfunded.
“I came in to take lead in 2023. I realised that there is a huge gap in funding most of our scientists,” he stated. “We still have a huge capacity gap here; most of our scientists left, principal scientists we need to bring in but we can’t look after them because the funding has not been good enough.”
Dr Simbiken said NARI needs K17-K20 million to support its staff in research and development.
“Statistically, we have seen research in the country, on an annual basis, receive less than 0.02 percent funding. 0.001 percent of GDP in research funding to the country. In other countries, like Singapore, you see 5 to 7 percent of their GDP going to supporting research and development. So, when we endeavour into commercial production in the country, research and development must always stand behind it to push it.”
NARI has accepted Minister Maru’s challenge to assist with the development of an irrigation policy to support the State’s vision of large-scale commercial rice farming.
The Minister has given the assurance that his ministry will support them with whatever they need to help the government achieve its goal.