Publications

The gendered effects of rainfall shocks on stunting: Evidence from Papua New Guinea

Rainfall fluctuations significantly reduce welfare for poor rural households in low- and middle-income countries dependent on rainfed agriculture for consumption, and the effects of these shocks can be borne disproportionately by vulnerable household members, particularly children and girls. We present new evidence around the effects of rainfall fluctuations on child anthropometric status in Papua New Guinea, an understudied context characterized by some of the highest stunting rates in the world. We show that negative fluctuations in rainfall within the first 12 months of life lead to a reduction in height-for-age and weight-for-age (though not stunting), but this effect is observed only for girls.

Half a day’s pay for a healthy household diet in PNG

Survey data suggest that in Port Moresby (POM), feeding an entire household a nutritious diet for a single day requires 45% of a low-skill worker’s daily wage. The healthy diet burden eases somewhat outside of the capital: 41% in Kokopo, 38% in Lae and 37% in the Highlands. The reasons behind these regional differences are layered. In Lae, wages are relatively higher while food costs are lower compared to POM. In the Highlands, both wages and food prices are lower, resulting in roughly the same share of earnings needed for a healthy diet as in Lae even though the absolute numbers differ. On the other hand, Port Moresby faces higher healthy food costs and lower wages, particularly for informal wage workers.

Papua New Guinea food price bulletin: April 2026

This bulletin reports on food price trends from major markets in Papua New Guinea (PNG), for the first quarter (Q1) of 2026 using the data collected by Fresh Produce Development Authority (FPDA). During the first quarter, at least one round of data per month was collected from all markets, except for Port Moresby in February (no data). In March, Banz and Port Moresby had two rounds each, while all other markets had one round.

This report analyzes month-over-month changes in Q1 2026 (January to March) and compares prices with the previous quarter (Q4 2025: October to December) and the same period in 2025 (Q1 2025). Prices are reported in real PGK per kilogram (i.e., adjusted for inflation using the FAO Consumer Food Price Index (PCI) and price gaps from July 2025 to March 2026 filled using a growth rate calculated from quarterly PCI data provided by the PNG National Statistical Office (June and September 2025)). This bulletin focuses on selected staples (sweet potato, taro, cassava, cooking banana and rice), vegetables (aibika, English cabbage, capsicum, carrot, and choko-tips) and fruits (lemon, orange, pawpaw and pineapple).

Creating a taro yield emulator and using it to study climate change impact on taro in Papua New Guinea

This paper develops a taro yield emulator to assess climate change impacts on taro production in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The emulator uses a fixed-effects polynomial regression trained on DSSAT simulations to capture non-linear, stage-specific responses of taro yields to rainfall and temperature. Historical MSWX weather and future climates from CMIP6/ISIMIP3b and a large MIT-IGSM/AgERA5 sample are used to drive the emulator and assess changes in average yields, yield variability, and the frequency of low-yield years across PNG. Our analysis shows that taro appears to be sensitive to both low- and high-rainfall levels during particular phases of growth and is sensitive to heat during particular phases, as well.

Our visit to farmers fields in the Markham Valley along with discussions with experts at GrowPNG in Lae, NARI, and PNG University of Technology in Lae alerted us to the fact that drought was a serious problem for taro, but the model revealed the additional issues with high rainfall and high temperature, along with the additional information about the months that were particularly important for determining the degree of damage that adverse weather might do to yields.

National-average yield changes by mid-century under high-emissions scenarios are projected to be small based on the median projections across climate models, however one of the climate models projects a much larger temperature increase relative to the other models, and for that climate model, the yield reduction is around 9% on average.

Synopsis: Evolution of and opportunities for the fresh produce value chain in PNG

Enhancing the fresh produce value chain in PNG will contribute to wider development goals including rural economic growth, food and nutrition security and rural employment diversification. An important component of strengthening agriculture value chains in PNG will be increasing crop productivity and quality. However, equally important is strengthening agricultural markets and rural – urban linkages. Recognizing the importance of supporting greater domestic fresh produce marketing, the PNG government (GoPNG) continues to promote investments that link farmers to markets, primarily through the Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA) (DAL 2023).

A principal mechanism for promoting rural economic growth and strengthening agriculture value chains involves enabling the more commercially oriented smallholder farming households to significantly increase their productivity through greater use of modern farming inputs over an increasing share of local arable land (Benny et al., 2022). As the income of more productive farm households grows, their demand for locally produced goods and services increases. These goods and services are generally labor-intensive, require limited capital in their production, and are typically not marketed outside of the local community. This includes construction and associated services; transport and infrastructure services; education, health, and other social services; food and beverage processing; and the like, which facilitate greater (and often higher value) labor diversification and specialization within the rural economy.

Fresh produce value chains remain understudied in many low- and middle-income countries, despite their demonstrated role in promoting rural economic growth, improved welfare, and dietary diversity. This lack of information and analysis is particularly acute in Papua New Guinea (PNG), whereby dated or limited evidence exists on agriculture production and expansion, fresh produce trade flows, price formation and price variation over time, throughout seasons, and across regions. Understanding these production and market dynamics is essential for supporting value chain actors in developing profitable and sustainable systems that provide farmers with the incentives they need to supply fresh produce to trustworthy and transparent markets.

This synopsis draws upon 2 detailed studies (Schmidt et al., 2025; and Minten et al., 2025) that aim to inform opportunities for investment in the fresh produce value chain by: 1) analyzing remote sensing data to estimate agricultural expansion in horticulture production areas of the PNG highlands; 2) evaluating unique market flow and fresh produce price data collected over a 15-year period by FPDA; and 3) estimating the price margins of each value chain actor in the fresh produce value chain through in-depth stakeholder interviews.

The structure of this synopsis report is as follows. Section 2 provides an analysis of agriculture expansion over time and fresh produce market flows from the Highlands fresh produce corridor. Section 3 examines price trends and marketing margins across 6 key markets in diverse locations of the country. Section 4 reports on in-depth stakeholder interviews to unpackage costs along the value chain from farmgate to retailer. Section 5 concludes with key findings and implications.

Scoping report: Understanding the fresh produce value chain in Papua New Guinea

The Government of Papua New Guinea (GoPNG) aims to promote agricultural transformation through strategic investments to support greater commercialization via increases in production output and quality. To accomplish this goal, the GoPNG recently released the National Agriculture Sector Plan (NASP) 2024-2033 which acknowledges the fresh produce sector’s potential to contribute to poverty alleviation and economic growth via increased income for rural farmers (Department of Agriculture and Livestock 2023). With growing urbanization and expanding mining operations, the demand for fresh produce is increasing within the country (Chang et al. 2015). While the challenges that PNG faces to promote a more competitive fresh produce agriculture sector are not simple hurdles to overcome, they are not impossible barriers to surpass either.

This report sets out to achieve three goals: 1) provide an assessment of PNG’s fresh produce farming and sales trends using remote sensing data and recent data collected by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA); 2) report on current programming (namely Market for Village Farmers) aimed at supporting fresh produce value chain development; and 3) inform future programming of fresh produce value chain support through a detailed account of a scoping study of the fresh produce sector conducted in June, 2025 and November, 2025.

Market flows and price patterns of fresh produce in Papua New Guinea

This study analyzes the fresh produce market in Papua New Guinea (PNG) using unique market flow and price data collected by the Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA) over the past 15 years across multiple markets. We document substantial flows of fresh produce from diverse production zones to major urban centers, with Port Moresby emerging as the primary terminal market. Hard fresh produce and sweet potato supplied there largely originate from the Highlands, while other staples and soft fresh produce are mostly sourced from other regions. Price analysis reveals four key patterns: (i) fresh produce prices have risen significantly relative to non-food products, particularly for items less supplied by the Highlands; (ii) prices exhibit strong seasonality—lowest at year-end and highest mid-year (June–August)—reflecting major cultivation periods and possibly seasonality in household labor availability; (iii) marketing margins have increased substantially, especially for soft fresh produce, creating new opportunities for Highland producers to compete in Port Moresby markets; and (iv) in 2023–2025, marketing and wastage costs accounted for the largest share of retail prices in Port Moresby—up to 85 percent for cabbage—while producer shares ranged from 15 percent for cabbage to 61 percent for Irish potatoes. These findings underscore evolving market dynamics and the critical role of supply chain efficiency in PNG’s fresh produce sector.

Papua New Guinea food price bulletin: February 2026

This bulletin reports on food price trends from major markets in Papua New Guinea, for the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2025 based on data collected by Fresh Produce Development Authority (FPDA). Consistent data collection continues to be a challenge during the fourth quarter: no data was collected for the month of October (except for one round in Goroka and Kokopo, respectively). To provide up-to-date analysis, this bulletin incorporates all available data from October 2025 - January 2026 data. For Port Moresby, food price data were collected only for December and one round in January.

This report compares Q4 2025 (November & December) prices with the same period in 2024 and 2023. Prices are reported in PGK per kilogram and represent real prices adjusted for inflation using the FAO Consumer Food Price Index (PCI) and price gaps (July 2025 to January 2026) filled using a growth rate calculated from the PNG National Statistical Office - June quarterly PCI data. This bulletin focuses on selected important staples (sweet potato, taro, cassava, cooking banana and rice), vegetables (aibika, English cabbage, capsicum, carrot, and choko-tips) and fruits (lemon, orange, pawpaw and pineapple). For longer time series data and interactive tools, visit the IFPRI website and download food price data here.

Papua New Guinea low-skill urban wage survey (2025) report

The Papua New Guinea Low-Skill Urban Wage Survey (PLUWS 2025) was designed to fill an information gap on low-skill wage employment and dietary purchasing power in select urban areas across Papua New Guinea. Telephone interviews were conducted from June 2nd through November 10th of 2025, that purposefully interviewed urban wage earners in low- or low-medium1 skill occupations in cities where the Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA) is also collecting monthly fresh food prices. In doing so, the survey collected information from individuals based in Port Moresby, Kokopo, Lae, Mount Hagen, Banz, Goroka, and Daru, with a focus of achieving a total survey sample that supported gender disaggregated analysis of wage rates, payment preferences, purchasing power, and household and individual characteristics of low- and medium-low skill wage earners. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) partnered with a large PNG mobile phone company, Digicel, who randomly selected mobile phone clients from comprehensive lists of users geographically mapped to each of the urban cities identified for survey implementation. Two sampling strategies were implemented (described in more detail below) which resulted in a lower-bound (e.g., greater share of informal employment, less training or education, and lower wage rates) and upper-bound sample of low-wage earners. The final survey sample consists of 590 low- and medium-low skilled wage workers. Of which, approximately 2/3 of survey respondents are men (69% men and 31% women). The survey asked questions about individual characteristics (gender, age, marital status, education, etc.) of the respondent and the respondent’s household (assets, household composition, decision-making regarding earned incomes, etc.); characteristics of respondents’ employment; preferences for wage payment in money or in-kind; and the respondents’ diet quality. This report provides results tables and a discussion of the descriptive statistics by gender and sample approach (lower-bound and upper-bound) of low-skill wage workers.

Tracing the economic impacts of the 2025 US tariff increases and evaluating possible responses: An analysis for Papua New Guinea

Restrictions on global trade can contribute to adverse economic outcomes in developing countries. Perverse outcomes include reduced export opportunities and higher input costs for essential goods. Policymakers in Papua New Guinea (PNG), as in other developing countries across the world, have therefore been concerned about global trade uncertainty as geopolitical tensions and protectionist policies have escalated throughout 2025. In April 2025, the United States (US) implemented a new tariff policy that included a baseline 10% tariff on goods from all countries, including PNG, along with higher "reciprocal tariffs" on countries with large trade deficits. The PNG government confirmed it would not retaliate but would instead pivot trade toward Asia-Pacific partners such as China, Indonesia, and Japan. In July 2025 PNG’s exports to the US were subjected to a 15% reciprocal tariff under an updated U.S. tariff schedule. In the ensuing months, some countries managed to finalize bilateral trade deals with US and reduced the tariff rates, while others are still under negotiations. According to the US trade policy 2025, the increment in reciprocal tariff on PNG is a result of the country’s failure to take sufficient steps to align with the US (The White House, 2025).

In this note, we provide a rapid assessment of the potential impacts of US tariff hikes on PNG’s economy, specifically on trade, GDP, and household income. We consider the two following scenarios:
Scenario 1—only US imposes additional tariffs (10 percent, 15 percent, and 30 percent), and PNG does not reciprocate.
Scenario 2—PNG reciprocates with equivalent tariffs on the commodity import from the US.

This note provides a rapid assessment of impact of US tariff policy on key macroeconomic indicators of PNG. This also helps derive quick policy insights into whether it would be advantageous for PNG to respond with higher tariffs or to accept the US’s higher tariff. Though US has imposed a 15% tariff on PNG’s export to US, due to uncertainty regarding the level of protectionism among the countries, this analysis also considers multiple tariff rates to understand the extent of economic losses in PNG due to relatively higher US tariff in the future.

Nutrition sensitive poverty and its correlates in Papua New Guinea: Incorporating healthy diet targets into poverty measurement

As the international development community increasingly prioritizes nutrition outcomes, incorporating healthy diets into poverty measurements has important implications for what it means to be poor. Particularly for low- and middle-income countries dependent on domestic agriculture and low-cost food imports, evaluating the access to healthy diets is crucial to meeting food security goals. This paper provides the most expansive poverty assessment using the cost of basic needs approach in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in 15 years. In doing so, we compare a standard cost of basic needs poverty line where the food poverty line is defined by modest diets aligned with consumption patterns that meet a dietary energy (calorie) threshold; and a healthy diet food poverty line that meets both the dietary energy threshold and recommended nutrition targets. Results suggest that 43% of sample individuals live below the standard cost of basic needs poverty line. An additional 21% of sample individuals (64%) live below the healthy diet poverty line due to the relatively high cost of nutrient-dense foods in PNG. Multivariate regression analysis underscores the importance of household income diversification, whether via non-farm enterprise ownership or migrant remittances. Results reflect the unique challenges characterized by PNG’s remote landscape and lack of rural services, amplifying the need to improve rural-urban linkages that promote market access, educational attainment, and higher value employment opportunities.

Women’s empowerment and child nutrition in the Asia – Pacific region: Evidence from Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Timor-Leste

Adverse nutritional outcomes for children under five remain a significant challenge around the world, and there is growing evidence that women’s empowerment is associated with better children’s nutritional outcomes. In this paper, we analyze the association between women’s empowerment and the probability of stunting, wasting, underweight status, and achieving dietary diversity for children under five using a cross-country sample of Demographic and Health Survey data from three countries in the Asia – Pacific region: Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Timor-Leste. We construct the Survey-based Women’s Empowerment (SWPER) index as well as a slightly modified SWPER index using women’s reported experience of intimate partner violence (IPV) rather than attitudes toward domestic violence (employed in the original index). Our findings suggest that women’s empowerment as captured by the SWPER index is associated with a reduced incidence of stunting, wasting and underweight status and a higher probability that children achieve MDD, though this relationship is only weakly observed in Timor-Leste. In general, the index estimated using experience of IPV shows a clearer association with nutritional outcomes, vis-a-vis the index estimated using attitudes toward IPV.

Papua New Guinea food price bulletin: October 2025

This report provides analysis of food price trends for the third quarter (Q3) of 2025, from July to September. The Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA) continues to collect prices from major markets despite recurrent logistical challenges to maintain consistent data for capturing, analyzing and informing relevant stakeholders. Due to insufficient data being collected from April to June (collected only for May across all markets and for April in Banz and Kokopo), no second quarter bulletin was published. This report compares prices in Q3 2025 with Q1, Q2 (with the available limited data) of 2025, and Q3 2024 to identify quarterly and year-on-year trends of prices. Prices are reported in PGK per kilogram and represent real prices adjusted for inflation using FAO Consumer Food Price Index (PCI) and price gaps (April to September 2025) filled using a growth rate calculated from the PNG National Statistical Office (NSO) - June quarterly PCI data. This bulletin focuses on selected important staples (sweet potato, taro, cassava, cooking banana and rice), vegetables (aibika, English cabbage, capsicum, carrot, and choko-tips) and fruits (lemon, orange, pawpaw and pineapple). For longer time series data and interactive tools, visit the IFPRI website and download food price data here.

Regional implications of public investments and external shocks in Papua New Guinea: An economywide analysis

Improvements in telecommunications have enabled a tremendous increase in the flow of information across Papua New Guinea. Although transport costs remain high between various parts of the main island of Papua New Guinea, as well as between the main island and other parts of the country (e.g. the islands of New Britain and Bougainville to the East), phone and internet conditions enable government, traders and entrepreneurs to share market information that reduces transactions costs and improves market function. Nonetheless, there remain major differences in agricultural production, income sources and demand patterns across regions that are important to take into account in analyzing the impacts of external shocks and formulating development strategies.

Earlier work on PNG by Schmidt et al., (2021) explored the effects of Covid-related income and world rice price shocks with a partial equilibrium model of PNG’s rice economy. Diao et al., (2021) used a regional multi-market model to analyze broader effects of Covid-19 and other shocks to agriculture and household incomes in four regions of PNG. Various other studies, including Dorosh and Pradesha (2022) and Diao et al. (2024), used national computable general equilibrium (CGE) models of PNG to analyze exchange rate, terms of trade, and productivity shocks on various household groups. In this paper, we extend these earlier analyses through use of a new regional CGE model that utilizes recent household survey data, including the 2023 IFPRI PNG rural household survey.

The plan of this paper is as follows. The next section provides an overview of agriculture and economic growth in PNG over the last decade, highlighting the almost constant share of agriculture in GDP and very low per capita agricultural GDP growth rate. Section 3 describes the regional disaggregation of the PNG economy and the structure of household incomes and expenditure as reflected in the economywide database, the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM), used in this analysis. Section 4 then presents a summary of the regional economywide model. (Details of the model are found in the annexes and in the references included in the paper.) Design of the model simulations and simulation results covering investments in agriculture and transport sectors, as well as world price shocks are discussed in Section 5. Chapter 6 concludes with a summary of the main findings and policy implications, as well as suggested areas for further work.

The gendered effects of rainfall on early childhood nutrition: Evidence from Papua New Guinea

Rainfall fluctuations can significantly reduce welfare for poor rural households in low- and middle-income countries dependent on rainfed agriculture for consumption, and in some contexts these adverse effects may be borne disproportionately by vulnerable household members, particularly children and girls. We present new evidence around the effects of rainfall fluctuations on child anthropometric status in Papua New Guinea, an understudied context characterized by some of the highest stunting rates in the world. We show that negative fluctuations in rainfall within a 12-month period are associated with reduced household consumption (driven by reduced consumption of own-produced food). Moreover, when these fluctuations are observed in the first year of a child’s life, they lead to a reduction in height forage and weight-for-age (though no shift in stunting), but this effect is observed only for girls: boys seem to be protected from the adverse effects of rainfall fluctuations experienced in infancy.

Implications of exchange rate overvaluation and world price shocks for PNG

The large inflow of foreign capital to fund PNG investments in natural gas pipeline and processing infrastructure resulted in a surge in inflation beginning in 2011. Costs of production of tradable goods such as coffee and palm oil rose more (in kina terms) than their output prices, reducing the profitability of these sectors. These price distortions have continued to the present day, as restrictions on access to foreign exchange (mainly through delays in the release of funds) as demand for foreign exchange exceeds supply made available to the public. This policy note reviews PNG’s exchange rate policies and uses an economy-wide simulation model1 to quantify the impacts of these distortions. We conclude with a discussion of policy implications, highlighting the effects of a possible devaluation / depreciation of the kina.

Commercialization of Papua New Guinea's vegetable sector: Identifying constraints using quantitative, qualitative, and large language model methods

This paper evaluates the constraints within Papua New Guinea's vegetable sector, drawing on large scale household surveys, extensive qualitative interviews with key stakeholders, and Large Language Model (LLM) methods.

Our survey data reveal that vegetable production is ubiquitous, with almost all households surveyed (91%) growing at least one vegetable. Indigenous varieties, such as leafy greens (96%) and fresh beans (69%), are widely cultivated across regions, while high-value vegetables like onion (17%) and tomato (19%) show more regional concentration. Over half (53%) of PNG vegetable farmers sell their produce, with farmers located in the nonseasonal highlands agro-ecological area leading in market participation (66%), contributing to an overall commercialization rate of 24% (defined as the share of pro duction sold). However, modern input use, particularly improved seed adoption, significantly lags behind output commercialization in all agroecological zones except the islands survey areas.

The quantitative analysis, using the PNG Rural Household Survey 2023, and the qualitative analysis, drawing from both manual review and LLM-assisted processing of in-depth interview notes, consistently identify poor feeder roads as critical bottlenecks for every stakeholder across PNG's vegetable value chain. Beyond transportation, these interviews repeatedly highlighted persistent seed supply shortages and high seed costs as significant hurdles. Since PNG depends on imported vegetable seeds, several structural and procedural barriers contribute to these shortages. These include potentially arduous quarantine procedures, limited foreign exchange for seed imports, and cumbersome permit processes, often leaving major distributors with insufficient stock. These reported bottlenecks may contribute to the low improved seed adoption and use reflected in the household survey analysis.

Declining purchasing power of minimum wages in Papua New Guinea: Analysis of economic access to healthy diets

Key Messages
To address rising living costs which reduce the purchasing power of the minimum wage, the Government of PNG recently launched a review of the country’s minimum wage. The minimum wage has been PGK 3.50 per hour or PGK 28 per 8-hour day since July 2016. At the beginning of 2025, the minimum wage could purchase about three-quarters as much food and other goods and services compared to July 2016. The cost of a healthy diet per adult per day in urban areas increased by 35 percent from PGK 7.70 in 2021 to PGK 10.37 in 2025. The cost of the healthy diet was the most expensive in Port Moresby—PGK 11.15 per adult per day in 2025 and increased the most in Kokopo (54 percent) from PGK 5.81 to PGK 8.92 between 2021 and 2025. One and a half full-time urban minimum wage earners earn just enough to feed a healthy diet to a family of five in 2025, with no money remaining for essential non-food expenses such as clothing, shelter, transportation, health, and education. The government recently published a public notice of Goods and Services Tax (GST) zero-rating of essential goods effective 1st June 2025 to 30th June 2026. We re-evaluate the purchasing power of a minimum wage by decreasing the price of tinned tuna and rice by 10% (reflective of the GST zero-rating) on Q1 2025 recorded prices. Assuming prices remain constant (with no shifts in demand due to decreased tax), the cost of the average urban healthy diet in the first quarter of 2025 is 4.7 percent lower without the GST (PGK 9.87) compared to the cost of a healthy diet with the GST (PGK 10.35) — slightly improving the purchasing power of minimum wage earners.

Papua New Guinea food price bulletin: April 2025

Download time series food price data, and build graphs and tables for over 20 different food crops at our food price database webpage:
https://www.ifpri.org/project/fresh-food-price-analysis-papua-new-guinea
Compared to Q4 2024, average prices of staples across the PNG markets decreased by 15 percent from January to March 2025
The price of a 1-kilogram bag of imported rice remained relatively stable between January and February 2025. Compared to Q4 2024, the average 1-kg bag of rice price increased by 6 percent in the first quarter of 2025.
Compared to Q4 2024, Q1 2025 price trends of fresh vegetables were mixed across commodities. In Port Moresby, prices of English cabbage, carrot and choko-tips were 12 percent lower, while aibika and capsicum were 24 percent higher than January and February 2024.
Compared to Q4 2024, prices of lemon, orange, pawpaw and pineapple in Goroka and Kokopo decreased on average by 15 percent in Q1 2025.

Papua New Guinea Rural Household Survey, 2023

The Papua New Guinea Rural Household Survey (2023) collected detailed household-level data on agricultural production, food and non-food consumption and expenditure, and livelihood strategies across 14 provinces, covering communities in the highlands, lowlands, and islands of Papua New Guinea (PNG). The survey was designed using a purposive sampling strategy based on defined agro-ecological zones, which allows for the analysis of key factors influencing rural households and communities. It is important to note that the survey is not nationally representative; however, given the careful random selection of survey areas, we expect that generalizable relationships between variables affecting socio-economic and other development outcomes in rural PNG communities will be consistently observed across representative samples and in this survey. These factors include those that contribute to more resilient local food systems, diversified employment opportunities, and improved household wellbeing. The survey encompasses 2,699 households in 270 communities, spanning five agroecological zones. It features detailed modules on a wide range of topics relevant to rural livelihoods, agricultural production, and household wellbeing.