Copra plantations in New Guinea facts for kids
Copra plantations in New Guinea have been important for a long time. They first started in the late 1800s when German settlers arrived. After World War II, Australian companies continued to run them.
Copra is the dried meat of a coconut. It is the fourth most important crop in Papua New Guinea (PNG) that people sell for money. About 2.6 million people in PNG use coconuts. They either sell them to earn money or use them for food.
Early Coconut Plantations
In 1884, German settlers came to eastern New Guinea. This area is now part of Papua New Guinea. They began planting coconut palms to make copra. The Germans set up a colony called German New Guinea in the northern part of the island. They built many coconut plantations along the coast. They did not go far inland.
To balance the German presence, the Australian state of Queensland claimed the southern part of the island. This area became the Territory of Papua. Both the German and Australian plantations grew well. They provided a very comfortable life for the foreign owners. Large houses were built on the plantations with fancy furniture. Most of the hard work was done by local New Guinean people. The towns of Port Moresby and Rabaul grew because of these busy plantations.
When the First World War began in 1914, Australia sent a small army to take over the German lands in the South Pacific. After the war, in 1919, Germany lost all its lands overseas. This included German New Guinea. It then became the Territory of New Guinea, which Australia managed for the League of Nations.
In the 1920s, the German plantation owners lost their properties. These coconut plantations were then sold to soldiers returning from the war. Many of these sales were helped by large trading companies. These companies would later manage the plantations.
Recent History of Copra
By the 1980s, two Australian trading companies mainly controlled copra production in New Guinea. These were Burns Philp and W. R. Carpenter & Co.
In 1985, the PNG government created the Copra Marketing Board. This board was meant to take over copra production in PNG. However, the copra industry in PNG almost disappeared. This was because American soy beans became very popular in the late 1980s. Copra exports from PNG became very low by 2004.
According to the PNG Central Bank, PNG exported only 3,600 tons of copra in 2003. This was a very small amount. But exports started to go up again in 2004, reaching more than 9,100 tons.
In 1993, a company called Kokonas Industri Koporasen (KIK) built a copra mill in Madang. This company then had almost complete control over selling PNG copra. In 2003, the government ended KIK's special control over the market. A year later, KIK faced big financial losses. This forced the company to sell its Madang mill. In April 2004, an Australian-owned company bought the mill for about US$2.4 million.
The only other coconut mill in the country is owned by the Carpenter Group. It is located in Rabaul.
See also
- Agriculture in Papua New Guinea
- Economy of Papua New Guinea
