oreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced that New Zealand will contribute $13.5 million over four years to support the Pacific Horticultural and Agricultural Market Access (PHAMA) Plus programme, a new joint New Zealand–Australian initiative.
"Export opportunities make an important contribution to the economic growth of Pacific Island countries and the livelihoods of their people," Mr Peters said.
"Pacific producers struggle to gain and maintain access to international markets due to a range of challenges such as meeting the quality and biosecurity standards of export markets, maintaining a reliable scale of production and dealing with the increased frequency and severity of adverse weather events."
PHAMA Plus will target select export products of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and other Pacific Island countries such as Niue and Cook Islands, and help producers, processors and exporters improve their productivity, quality of production, and capacity to meet export market biosecurity requirements. Agricultural, forestry, fishery and handicraft products will be initially targeted for support under the scheme.
"The initiative aims to benefit up to 200,000 Pacific households, with special attention being given to ensure that women and youth are meaningfully included and benefit. Climate change resilience will be supported through targeting climate-appropriate crops and better connecting producers with long-term weather forecasting and adaptation advice," said Mr Peters.
PHAMA Plus complements other Pacific agriculture initiatives supported by MFAT, including a dairy programme in Fiji, a cocoa programme in Samoa, a vanilla programme in Tonga and a fresh produce programme in PNG.
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