The Didiman and Agricultural Policy; Creating Social Change in Papua

Prior to World War II, under Australian Administration, the economic development of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea was based on commercial agriculture centered on the institution of the plantation. Little was initiated in commercial or subsistence agriculture development for the Indigenous people. This changed after World War II to a rationale based not only on the promotion and advancement of primary industry but also came to include the indigenous farmers. The traditional farming method used was one based on shifting agriculture, trading networks and marine resources. To develop agriculture within a colony it was thought that a modification, or in some cases the complete changing of existing Indigenous farming systems, was necessary to improve the material welfare of the farming population and for the future national interest of the Papua New Guinea sovereign state. To achieve the modification in indigenous farming systems the Australian Government adopted and utilized a programme based on Agricultural Extension (AE). The aims of AE were based on the premise that it would raise the level of subsistence agriculture and at the same time, by introducing suitable cash crops, enable the indigenous farmers to gain a monetary income. The agricultural extension officers who carried out this work were known by the Indigenes as the Didiman (von Fleckenstein, 1980, p. 74). This paper will analyse the aims and methods associated with agricultural extension in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, and argue that the Didiman were more than agricultural educators, and were in planning and practice, active agents of social change