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New article out in the journal of Climate and Development: ‘Networking for gender equitable climate-smart agriculture’

Anglo Pacific Research’s Eimi Pulitala conducting the social network analysis survey with farmers in PNG.

A rewarding aspect of our continued work in rural Papua New Guinea (PNG) on the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) funded project Climate Smart Agriculture opportunities for enhanced production in PNG has been the opportunity to publish our research.

We are excited to share that a new paper building from the project’s research has been published in the journal of Climate and Development, with contributions from Sustineo’s Ellis Mackenzie, Dr Nici Sweaney, and Tom Sloan, in collaboration with Dr Rachel Friedman from the Australian National University Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions (ANU ICEDS)

The article, titled Networking for gender equitable climate-smart agriculture, reports on the novel application of social network analysis to explore the different information needs of men and women farmers in rural PNG. The article is based on data that Sustineo collected with support from Anglo Pacific Research (APR) and the National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) across Eastern Highlands, Morobe, and East New Britain.

APR’s Eimi Pulitala conducting the social network analysis survey with farmers in PNG.

The findings presented in the article show that men and women have different social networks within which they share information about the weather, and that they face different gendered barriers to information access and use. These findings have important implications for the communication of climate smart agriculture projects in PNG and across the Pacific more broadly.

The ACIAR project seeks to understand the “knowledge landscape” (i.e. how people share and receive information with each other) in farming communities in PNG so that seasonal climate information can be accurately targeted to community needs.

Watch this space for a few more publications that are on their way and have been co-authored by a range of our PNG partners.

The article is available through Taylor & Francis Online or you can email Ellis directly: ellis.mackenzie@sustineo.com.au

Farmers involved in a field trial in Ifiyufa, Eastern Highlands (Source: NARI 2022)