Making a Living from Horticulture

_Introduction

Horticulture refers to small-scale agriculture activities and the cultivation of flowers and fruit and nut trees. The term horticulture is synonymous with agriculture, forestry and agroforestry activities.

Few people in this country understand and appreciate the value of horticulture as a means to make a living.

Many people living in rural areas and some towns and cities are still stuck to subsistence gardening as a means to make a living. They produce food for their consumption, and they sell the excess to make a living.

Nevertheless, subsistence gardening is an outdated mode of survival in a modern world where money talks louder. People, whether they live in rural or urban areas, need more money than ever before to live reasonable lives due to the ever-increasing costs of living. People and families need more money to pay for school fees, factory-made merchandise, bus fares, energy for cooking and lighting, water and sanitation and other necessities and wants. 

Therefore, there should now be a paradigm shift in the lives of our rural populations as well as those living without formal employment in urban areas. People should now be finding easier and more lucrative ways of making money than being stuck with the idea that hard work and frugal living are the essence of a decent life.

Genesis of a Horticulture Revolution in Morobe Province

In the year 2016, a casual conversation between my brother-in-law, Andrew Joseph, and I led to the genesis of a horticulture revolution in Morobe Province.

Today, the Joseph Apollo family of Nasuapum village in the Wampar LLG of Huon District, Morobe Province, is using horticulture as a way to sustain its livelihood. Members of the Joseph Apollo family are now involved in floriculture and farming of Indian guavas on a semi-commercial scale.

How members of the Joseph Apollo family came to harness the power of horticulture to enhance their standard of living all started from humble beginnings. I have had a hand in that horticulture revolution, but I never anticipated that what I said or did would lead to something more significant and fulfilling.

This article is an account of how it all began and what the Joseph Apollo family is currently involved with.

Andrew Joseph and his Indian guava farm 

One day I decided to do grafts on an Indian guava tree in front of my house in Nasuapum village so that I would have many of the same trees growing around my house. I wanted to make as many grafts as possible to plant around my house so that my children would have lots of large, juicy Indian guava fruits to eat.

I pulled out a pocket knife and started to do grafting on my Indian guava tree.

As I was doing grafts on my Indian guava tree, I realized that my brother-in-law, Andrew Joseph, had come around to my house to fill his 50-litre containers with water from the tanks at the back of my family house.

He passed by without saying a word. He went straight to the tanks and started refilling his water containers.

On the way back, Andrew left his wheel-burrow load of water containers on my lawn and came over to watch me do grafting on my Indian guava tree. I saw him keenly watching me, but I just kept going without saying a word.

After some minutes Andrew asked me what I was doing, which I eagerly explained to him as I kept going with my grafting work. I simply told him that my guava grafts would flower and fruit within 3 – 12 months after planting, while guava trees planted from seeds would flower and fruit after 3 – 4 years. I also told him that mango grafts would flower and fruit in 9 – 12 months, but mango trees planted from seeds would flower and fruit after 8 -10 years.

The next morning, while I was having my breakfast, I saw Andrew heading into my front yard. I saw him from the distance and knew he was up to something, but I could not work out what it was.

I offered Andrew breakfast, and while we were eating he told me that he had thought hard and long about what I told him the previous day. He said he had realized that grafting of fruit and nut trees would make life easier for village people, and planting fruit and nut trees from seeds would take a long time before fruits and nuts could be harvested. Life is too short, and nobody would want to plant a guava seed and wait for it to flower and fruit in 3 – 4 years. The same for mangoes, nobody would want to plant a mango seed and wait for it to flower and fruit after 8 – 10 years.

He eventually told me that he was interested in planting Indian guava grafts and wanted me to teach him the grafting technique I used on my guava tree.

One bright Saturday morning I went over to Andrew’s piece of land to teach him how to do graft on an Indian guava tree. It took me some 10 minutes to show him how to do graft on an Indian guava tree.

Andrew’s younger brother, David Joseph, wanted to learn grafting so I taught him as well.

In 2019 my family returned to Port Moresby, and while we were away a lot of things happened in the village that we were not aware of. We had contact with the Joseph Apollo family, but we had no idea what they were doing in terms of their horticulture activities.

Fast forward to the Christmas of 2020 and my family and I are returning from Port Moresby for holidays.

As we settled in at Nasuapum village for the holidays, I went over to Andrew’s piece of land and found out that he had grafted some 100 trees and established a guava farm. I also found out that Andrew’s younger brother David had also grafted about 70 trees and established a guava farm as well.

It was beyond me. I could not believe that the simple grafting technique I had imparted to these two brothers had manifested in Indian guava farms.

Today, Andrew Joseph owns 200 Indian guava trees and his brother David has 170 trees.

They sell about 125 – 200kg (5 – 8 bags) of juicy Indian guava fruits every week at the Lae Main Market. The income earned from selling guava fruits sustains the livelihood of Andrew and David and their families.

The two brothers have disclosed to me that Indian guava farming is much easier to manage and the money earned from selling its fruits surely beats that of other cash crops sold by people from their village.

Floriculture

Besides farming Indian guava, the Joseph Apollo family also cultivates flowers, produces pot plants, and does a little bit of gardening for bananas and vegetables to put food on the table.

David Joseph and his wife Hereadai once had their story on floriculture appear in Air Niugini’s Paradise magazine. They have also appeared in a YouTube video on floriculture.

One day I was at my house when Andrew Joseph’s wife Moku, a Koiari woman from Sogeri Plateau, came to my house with some palm tree seeds. She showed me the seeds and said she had difficulty germinating her palm seeds. She said that many of the palm seeds she sowed in the past died, while one or two germinated.

I explained to her that the low germination was natural, and what she experienced was due to seed dormancy. Palm seeds would only germinate after a long dormancy period, and all she needed to do was to break the seed dormancy period using artificial methods.

I later taught Moku a simple method for breaking dormancy in palm seeds, which she eagerly learned and then applied to her palm seeds. She applied the technique to some palm seeds she had, and after a few weeks all the 32 seeds she sowed germinated.

I also taught Naomi Jessy, the wife of Andrew and David’s elder brother, Jessy Joseph, the technique of palm seed germination.

Naomi Jessy has since become an expert in palm seed germination, and she has produced and sold hundreds of potted palm trees.

The Joseph Apollo family still uses that simple technique to germinate palm seeds and produce potted palm trees. The potted palm trees are sold along the Lae-Nadzab road, and anybody traveling along that road would not miss seeing them at a place called “Flower Market.”

Hundreds of Cuttings from a Single Dwarf Ficus Tree Branch

One day, after church service, I was returning home. On the way, I saw a broken branch of a dwarf Ficus tree lying on the lawn at someone’s house in the village.

I went over and asked the owner of the dwarf Ficus tree if I could have the branch.

The owner told me that her children had played on the tree and broke off the branch, and she had no use for it. Therefore, I could have it.

I took that branch of dwarf Ficus tree home and made some 5 or 6 cuttings and planted them in my little greenhouse.

After some months I multiplied the cuttings and distributed them to members of the Joseph Apollo family.

Today, the Joseph Apollo family is still producing and selling pot plants of dwarf Ficus trees. The few cuttings I made from that one branch I brought home some years ago after attending church service has been used to produce hundreds of potted dwarf Ficus trees.

From one branch of a dwarf Ficus tree, the Joseph Apollo family has produced hundreds of pot plants and sold them to people from Morobe, Madang, the seven highlands provinces and other places in PNG. The family has spread the dwarf Ficus tree far and wide in PNG using their makeshift stalls along the roadsides.

Other fruits and nuts

Besides producing Indian guava fruits and flowers for a living, the Joseph Apollo family has ventured into grafting avocado, breadfruit, kalamansi, jackfruit, mandarin, orange, and pawpaw trees. The family plans to include more indigenous and exotic fruits and nuts in its portfolio of fruits and nuts for cultivation.

I bought and germinated some dragon fruit seeds in Port Moresby and then brought seedlings over to Lae.

The dragon fruit seedlings were raised in the nursery in Lae and then planted out when they were about 1 – 2 years of age. The plants are now about 3 years old and have already flowered and fruited.

Dragon fruit usually flowers and fruits at about 5 – 7 years of age. However, I did not want to wait for 5 – 7 years, so I had to manipulate the dragon fruit plants using physiological techniques to induce flowering and fruiting at age 3 years.

Succulent fruits of the dragon fruit have medicinal properties that are beneficial to people living with high blood pressure, diabetes, and other lifestyle diseases. Therefore, dragon fruit sells for about K80 -100 per kilogram at supermarkets in Port Moresby.

The Joseph Apollo family plans to venture into dragon fruit farming using the plants that have now flowered and fruited.  

Concluding Remarks

PNG spends millions of dollars every year importing exotic fruits to line the shelves of our supermarkets, but the country has the potential to develop its own horticulture industry.

It is only a matter of realizing that potential and developing the right policies and avenues to harness the power of this industry. It will in turn create employment and livelihood for our rural and urban populations and provide food for everyone.

The Joseph Apollo family of Nasuapum village in Morobe Province has harnessed the power of horticulture to make a living, and it has changed their way of life. They continue to do subsistence gardening to feed themselves, but their main income stream is from the horticultural activities of Indian guava fruit farming and floriculture (sale of cut flowers and potted plants).

The paradigm shift in the life of the Joseph Apollo family is what many Papua New Guineans need. The world has changed so much, but most Papua New Guineans are still stuck with ideas and practices that are outdated and need to be replaced with something contemporary.

Subsistence gardening is a thing of the past, and Papua New Guineans need to find easier and lucrative means to sustain their livelihoods in this modern world. The Joseph Apollo family has taken up horticulture to enhance its livelihood, but many other easier and lucrative livelihood activities remain to be explored. Aquaculture, aquaponics, hydroponics, tree farming of Balsawood, tree farming of Eaglewood for agarwood and tree farming of Terminalia kaernbachii (okari) and Canarium (galip) nut trees are some examples of easy and lucrative means to make a living in this country.