It was August 2011 and I had just joined my family on Bipi Island, for a 2 week break from hectic work in Rome where I was first informed about rice growing on the island. So eager was I to get to the bottom of this fantasy that I was led at once to a small test plot located in the Bipi Primary School grounds, just a stone's throw away from our island village house. In one part of the plot that had been seeded earlier, I saw young shoots of almost yellowish green grass, the kind of colour that could be considered to be that of an unhealthy plant, an indication that the grass shoot was struggling, that it would die soon. The other part of the plot appeared to be just a vacant portion of the 5 meter by 5 meter square of toiled soil. “Why aren't the shoots growing there?”, I asked pointing to the bit of the plot that was void of plant life. “That bit was seeded later, the seed have yet to germinate' was the response, “...or otherwise...”' 'Otherwise what?' I interjected? “Otherwise, the free roaming and hungry village chickens have got to the rice seeds first”, responded my informant.
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| Transplanted young rice plants |
'That's the end of the rice, story ' I mused, even after I was offered the extra information that there were other test plots seeded elsewhere on Bipi, that the rice was doing well and that I could be shown the healthy growing rice plots if I wanted to. My doubtful self demanded hard evidence rather than just being shown growing rice plants. I thought that rice growing and producing on Bipi was destined for absolute failure because I founded such a believe on the following facts:
- Bipi was a coral island measuring just over 3 km in length from West to East and just over 1 km in width;
Bipi had atoll-like soil which appears to me to be 95% sand and only an average of 10 centimeters of black topsoil being decayed organic material;
Even if it poured buckets of monsoonal rain on Bipi, the puddles that were formed on the ground would seep through the sandy soil and dry up in no time;
Real soil in the region was found only on the main island of Manus. Indeed, on the west coast of Manus, it was reported that farmers from the mainland village of Kali had grown rice and they had enjoyed their first harvest. But, that is Kali and of course the main island of Manus. Bipi was something completely different.
So rice growing on Bipi was not to be, I thought. Fast forward to August 2012 and my family and I were on Bipi again for a longer vacation. The question put to us this time was, 'Have you tasted Bipi grown rice?' 'For real?' was the incredulous reaction from us. Smugly narrated stories of modest but successful rice harvests begin to unravel for our listening pleasure. We were even told that the rice was 'sweet' compared to store-bought Asian or Australia packaged and imported rice. 'Sweet' in this case meant that the cooked Bipi rice was delicious - that it could be eaten without the normal accompaniment of fish that is bountiful in Bipi seas. Thus began our conversion, from non believers to believers of the fact that rice can be grown and that the same rice can be harvested, cooked and eaten on this remote island of Bipi.
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| Sick rice plants - early stage |
Wow - rice, a food item that was long considered a foreigner's, even a rich men's food - something that you could buy only in stores - was to become a locally grown food item. A commodity that was steadily rising in cost and threatening to move out of reach of the meager buying power of an ordinary villager was finally being grown on Bipi among cassava and kaukau (sweet potato). It did not have to be purchased. The Asian staple would become just as accessible as picking ripe bananas or plucking breadfruit off the trees that grew in abundance on the island.
Sadly however, the rice story of Bipi is not all rosy. Just before the end of our vacation on Bipi, an investigation team comprising civil servants from the Manus Provincial Government, disaster relief officials and other technicians representing NARI (the PNG National Agriculture Research Institute) and other government entities, visited Bipi. We had been told about the rice plants on Bipi that had withered, turned brown and died. For some Bipi rice farmers, it was their whole plot that was devastated, plagued by a mysterious disease. The government investigation team was on Bipi to investigate the cause of this disease.
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| PNG Government Investigating Team members |
We were informed immediately after the team’s visit that the rice plants were suspected of being attacked by larvae of two tiny moths found on Bipi. One of these liked the pith of the rice stalk and the other the roots. Bipi rice could not withstand such a double, sleek and covert attack. This preliminary finding of the investigation is yet to be confirmed. For now, rice planting beyond the first successful harvest (or second harvest for those who managed) will have to be suspended until NARI gets to the bottom of the disease affecting Bipi rice.
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| Sick rice plot |
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| Uprooted sick rice |
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At the end of our vacation, during a gathering where sharing a meal with family members is an institution on Bipi, we got to see the preparation of and sampled our first Bipi rice, harvested from the first planting cycle by Henry, a favourite relative. True to its earlier acclaimed features, Henry's Bipi rice was indeed 'sweet'.
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| Unhappy Bipi rice farmer |
For the people of far flung islands like Bipi, there is much to be gained if atoll rice can survive the harshness of tropical island conditions to become a sustainable part of the food supply of islanders such that their food security could be given a boost. While local tropical island fruits and vegetables and saksak (sago) will continue to comprise the main diet of the Bipi people, we hope, for nutritional variety and choice reasons, that such a tasty food item, one that may soon become the staple of many Papua New Guineans, would survive on Bipi. Our hopes are that NARI could confirm their findings of the disease affecting Bipi rice soon and that the disease can be treated or eradicated so that rice can be grown with confidence that a bountiful harvest will be the profit of an investment of labour and love of the rice growers of Bipi.
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| Another unhappy farmer |
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