Smallholders
The mission of the smallholders is to maintain the current planted areas of almost 15 000 hectares and strive to achieve a production rate of 20 tonnes per hectare by 2025.
In the 1960s West New Britain was selected for the establishment of agricultural crops. The first commercial palm oil establishment was developed at Hoskins as a smallholder project and, after two to three years of planting, it progressed into Bialla district just before Papua New Guinea achieved independence. There are now 3 646 smallholder blocks with 14 942 hectares of oil palm development scattered along the coast of West New Britain alongside company plantations. The total smallholder area is divided into three divisions, with 34 subdivisions. When driving from Kimbe to Bialla, the first division is called Cenaka with 5 640 hectares, followed by the second division Maututu with 6 082 hectares and then towards East New Britain is Meramera with 3 220 hectares. Today, there a three types of land block within smallholder planting:
- Land settlement scheme
- Village oil palm
- Independent estate