For more than fifty years, FAO and Papua New Guinea have worked together on food, farming and resilience. These are some of the people behind that partnership, and the full stories behind the exhibition at the World Food Day Commemoration.
The exhibition was first shown at the national World Food Day commemoration in Port Moresby on 16 October 2026, organized by the Government of Papua New Guinea, through the Department of Agriculture and Livestock, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Papua New Guinea.
It tells the story of FAO’s work in Papua New Guinea through six areas, from drought early warning to fisheries, livestock and One Health, forests, value chains and nutrition, and through the farmers, fishers and officers who carry that work forward. This online edition brings together the full stories, the figures and the sources that would not fit on the wall, and looks back on 51 years of partnership between Papua New Guinea and FAO.
First shownWorld Food Day, 16 October 2026
WhereKutubu Convention Centre, Hilton Port Moresby
Online editionSix chapters and 51 years of partnership
The Agricultural Drought Action Platform (ADAPt) is FAO Papua New Guinea’s public platform for monitoring agricultural drought and El Niño risk. Its Combined Drought Index merges climate and satellite data into province-level early warnings, helping government and communities make informed decisions and strengthen agricultural resilience.
The index brings together six sources: two readings of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, the Indian Ocean Dipole, current rainfall, soil moisture, vegetation health and the three-month rainfall forecast. Each province receives a value from 0 to 1. The bands follow the agriculture sector plan of the Food Security Cluster, prepared by DAL and FAO: readiness, anticipatory action and response.
For each province, ADAPt also shows the livelihoods most exposed and the likely effects of drought, three decades of history, and an estimate of the people exposed, down to village level. Vegetation stress comes from FAO’s Agricultural Stress Index System, updated every ten days. A report can be generated and downloaded, and the platform works on a phone.
When floodwaters damaged Hambini’s only bridge, the community built a new one with free labour and money from its village trust fund, built up from cocoa and vanilla savings. Women and youth carried the sand, stone and gravel. It ended 22 months of isolation for about 9 000 people.
“Supportive partnership like with EU-STREIT PNG is crucial, but the impact can multiply only when communities take ownership.”
Maureen Mompi, deputy chairlady of the farming group
Enhancing fishing capacities for better livelihoods
With European Union funding, FAO gave Sepik fishing groups boats, gear and cooler boxes, and trained crews to run the engines. Fishers also learned to manage money, open bank accounts, use digital tools and run a business.
Fishers in rural Wewak come ashore with their catch. FAO, with funding from the European Union, gave their fishing group this boat, fishing gear and cooler boxes, and trained its members to run the engine safely, service it and fix common faults. FAO has also given Sepik fishing groups fish aggregating devices, anchored floats that draw fish to one spot, so crews know where to head.
With a well-kept boat and fish easier to find, the group brings in catch for local families, and the same boat carries fish to town markets for sale.
“The customers in Vanimo are happy with the quality of the fish. Most of those who need fish daily now preorder through my Facebook page and WhatsApp.”
Fish was rare on the plate in Huareheng, in East Sepik. After training in fish farming in 2022 and 250 fingerlings from the programme, Fabian stocked his first two ponds. By 2024 the village had 17 fishponds, and he had taught about 1 000 people in 12 other villages to farm fish.
“In my house, each member of the family has a fish each in two dinners per week.”
FAO is strengthening coordination across human, animal and environmental health so Papua New Guinea can better prevent, detect and respond to emerging threats, helping protect people’s health, livestock-dependent livelihoods and community wellbeing.
Health threats can move between people, animals and the environment, affecting people’s health, livelihoods and communities. Through the project on identifying and mitigating health threats in agrifood systems and related natural ecosystems through a One Health approach (TCP/PNG/4003), FAO is supporting Papua New Guinea’s National One Health Planning Committee to strengthen coordination across the human, animal and environmental health sectors. The project has supported the development of the National One Health Coordination and Governance Framework, which clarifies how institutions will work together to prevent, detect and respond to emerging health threats.
This collaboration also enabled national partners to jointly develop Papua New Guinea’s successful Pandemic Fund proposal, All Aboard for a Systematic Approach towards Pandemic Preparedness in PNG (ASAP-PNG), helping secure USD 14.4 million from the Pandemic Fund Secretariat for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
Within this broader investment, FAO is leading the USD 3 610 418 ASAP-PNG component, which aims to strengthen animal health systems through enhanced surveillance, workforce capacity, preparedness and response. Stronger animal health systems will help protect livestock, livelihoods and communities from emerging health threats.
TCP/PNG/4003 and GCP/PNG/020/PAF (ASAP-PNG) · pilot provinces Morobe, Eastern Highlands and Western Highlands
Papua New Guinea has established itself as one of the most advanced users of Open Foris, FAO’s open-source platform for environmental and forest monitoring. By generating reliable and transparent data on forests, biodiversity and land use, the country is strengthening natural resource management, enhancing climate reporting, and unlocking access to international climate finance opportunities.
That data has a value. The Green Climate Fund has approved a results-based payment to Papua New Guinea for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). Payments under REDD+ and the Tropical Forest Forever Facility could potentially bring the country an estimated USD 200 million a year.
EarthMap
FAO’s EarthMap is a free geospatial platform that turns satellite imagery and other spatial data into accessible maps. It helps users monitor forests, land cover, vegetation and climate-related changes, supporting mapping, monitoring and decision-making for agriculture and sustainable land management.
In Papua New Guinea, EarthMap holds more than 50 layers of data that change over time, among them land use (TerraPNG 2015), global forest change, tree canopy height, burned areas and topography. It can produce statistics on the spot for any of the 22 provinces, or for an area a user draws. FAO has trained 64 technical practitioners in Goroka, Mt Hagen and Port Moresby, 28 percent of them women: provincial officers, local conservation partners such as the Research and Conservation Foundation and community nature reserves, and forest monitors from FORCERT.
Maureen Mombi and her husband Ben lead three farmer groups, with about 1 500 members, in Hambini and Hambraure villages and on Mushu Island in East Sepik. Their business centres on vanilla, alongside cocoa.
With European Union funding, FAO helped the groups revive their vanilla gardens with healthy, treated vines and training in cultivation, husbandry and post-harvest handling. Solar dryers and solar-powered vacuum sealers now help them cure, pack and store beans to a consistent standard.
The same support helped them rejuvenate old cocoa plots. Farmers graft pest-tolerant seedlings, manage pests and diseases together, and use solar combination dryers to produce smoke-free, evenly dried beans.
Lead farmers have also trained in digital skills, financial literacy, the Gender Action Learning System (GALS) and running farming as a family business. Maureen and Ben joined exposure visits in Papua New Guinea, Australia and Singapore. Today the groups sell quality beans to premium buyers and have exported to the United Kingdom and Australia.
Better quality has brought better income, and the community has invested it in its own welfare: with their savings, it built a primary classroom, an aid post and a permanent bridge that ended the village’s isolation.
“We earned more, saved what we earned, and with those savings built our classroom, our aid post and our bridge.”
With European Union funding, FAO helped Sperian attend a food trade exhibition in Singapore and a chocolate festival in New Zealand, where he found premium buyers. The cooperative’s first 40 bags earned an extra PGK 4 000. It now buys wet beans from its 240 farmers at a higher price and sells dried beans to specialty chocolatiers overseas. Sperian says the extra income helps parents pay school fees and feed their families better. Yuat River cocoa has been nominated for Geographical Indication status.
“FAO has given us big exposure, which has connected us to a market and supported us with many important things such as cocoa seedlings, the materials to farm cocoa.”
More than 15 tonnes of Yuat cocoa shipped to boutique chocolatiers in New Zealand; one of 412 cocoa businesses supported in the Sepik. EU-STREIT PNG Programme
Angela is the Food Security Officer and Caretaker District Agriculture Coordinator for Wosera-Gawi. The programme trained her as one of about 70 coaches in the Gender Action Learning System, and she has since trained about 20 community gender advocates. Across the programme, more than 400 advocates and 2 125 people have been trained.
“Many women couldn’t come out to the front … But now, through this training, they know they have a place.”
Fish from FAO-supported fishing groups is laid out for sale at the markets in Vanimo and Angoram, bringing nutritious food, fresh or smoked, to town households. Fish earns money only if it reaches buyers in good condition.
With European Union funding, FAO has provided 32 innovative fish smoking units, 30 solar freezers and 330 cooler boxes in the Sepik, so less of the catch spoils before sale and fishers can meet the high demand in local markets for this nutrient-rich food. FAO has also run awareness training on nutrient-rich diets for 700 small businesses and farmer groups supported by the programme.
“I’m happy to say that the families here including mine have more fish now in our meals and this is good.”
The work in this exhibition is made possible by FAO’s partners and funders.
EU-STREIT PNG is funded by the European Union. Photographs as credited. Media contact: Michael Evoa, National Communications Specialist, FAO Papua New Guinea, [email protected]
