Helping Papua New Guinea to take the sweet potato from garden market to supermarket

An Australian agronomist is helping farmers in Papua New Guinea transition from growing sweet potato to feed their families, to growing food to feed the nation.

CQUniversity professor of horticultural science Phil Brown has been investigating how to take the crop from garden market model to a complete integrated supply chain servicing supermarkets in the big cities.

He said sweet potato was the major energy source for most people in PNG.

"In a lot of countries around the world the cereal crops like wheat and rice are the major source of carbohydrates, in PNG it's sweet potato," he said.

"They have maybe up to 100 different varieties. It is their major food source, but it's been used as a subsistence crop.

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AUDIO: Phil Brown says PNG farmers are looking for opportunities to make money off sweet potatoes (ABC News)

"The challenge we're looking at is how do you convert that type of system to a more commercial system where people can make money from selling sweet potato."

The researchers have introduced technology to enable the farmers to produce seedlings free of disease, thus increasing their productivity and allowing them to grow larger volumes of the vegetable.

"If we can produce material that is free from viruses, we can plant that material as a commercial crop.

"We'll get higher yields and better looking sweet potato which then has a greater market appeal," Professor Brown said.

"It will be an interesting transition to go from a subsistence system where they are just collecting cuttings from their own gardens ... to actually purchasing good planting material, growing their crops and selling it into a marketplace."