B’ville’s COVID-19 response to food systems (Post Courier) 

Post Courier (Papua New Guinea) published an article stating that prior to coronavirus, PNG’s food systems were already under constant threat from both natural and human-made factors such as natural disasters, pests, and disease infestation as well as challenges arising from its geographical context. The pandemic has only heightened these issues by disrupting food supply systems and access to markets. A new initiative is funded through The Pacific Regional Integrated Food and Nutrition Security Initiative to COVID-19 (PRISCO19) project and spearheaded by the Bougainville Department for Primary Industries in collaboration with The Pacific Community (SPC) Land Resources Division. The project is being implemented in 10 Pacific countries, including Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Tonga and Tuvalu, in addition to Fiji and Vanuatu. The articles sites an IFPRI discussion paper (Diao, X., P. Dorosh, P. Fang, and E. Schmidt. 2021. Effects of COVID-19 and other shocks on Papua New Guinea’s food economy: A multi-market simulation analysis.