About us
Our History
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AgBook Agribusiness Training and Advisory Ltd (AgBook) is proudly a 100% Papua New Guinea owned company. It was formally established in 2019 following a year of testing programs with various women and youth groups in East New Britain Province.
AgBook’s owner and Managing Director, Nicole Isifu, is a committed young woman inspired to challenge existing farming practices and drive an increase in youth participation in the agriculture sector – as entrepreneurs rather than labourers.
“Youth are so important to the future of PNG. Farmers are ageing, and youth are currently not interested. Yet, the nation imports so much of what can be produced ourselves and has the fastest growing agriculture market in the world at our doorstep. According to the last census ~54% of the population are under 25 years old. Therefore, as a young population, the nation has a significant labour force to take advantage of the opportunities in the agriculture sector. But no-one can expect youth to be interested in agriculture the way it works now.” Nicole Vutnamur, Managing Director, AgBook
Working Together
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AgBook is based on the principle of working together to improve performance. In our group programs, our fundamental principles are:
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Facilitation and ‘not’ teaching. Farmers learn by working together in workshops.
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Learning-by–doing. Learning is conducted through discussion, practice and reflection with an emphasis given to practical aspects of instruction that can be applied on farmers’ own farms.
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Interactive and responsive. The program consists of a series of structured exercises prepared largely as reference materials.
Our partnerships with industry are critical. By better understanding the needs of the market, we can customise the program so that the functioning of those markets improves for the benefit of the farmers, processors and customers.
The collaborative approach of AgBook aims to open new agriculture business opportunities by empowering rural farmers with new knowledge, whilst assisting industry to better engage with those farmers.
Our partnership with PNG Agriculture Company has led to the design of a program that is focused on creating farm diversification to protect against the risk of pests and diseases and downturns in the cocoa market.
AgBook has recently worked with Wafi Golpu JV to assist communities in the mining footprint develop business skills for their farms.
Our Philosophy
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AgBook is a training and advisory services company that believes by professionalising agriculture and introducing new technologies, agribusinesses will improve profitability, farmers will reap more benefit and youth will be attracted to the sector.
AgBook assists farmers to learn financial and business concepts and attain the skills required to enable them to play a key role in driving the acceleration in growth of their business and the agriculture sector. It enables youth and their families to learn and improve their knowledge, change their attitudes and enhance their skills needed for farm commercialisation and increasing their incomes – while working on their own farms.
Farmers will understand the dramatic changes that are taking place in farming worldwide, including the greater connectivity of people around the world (globalisation), the opening of markets to new players (liberalisation), and rapid urbanisation where many people are flocking to cities.
Farmers are living in a more competitive and compliance driven world and need to intensify their existing patterns of production and diversify their farm enterprises to improve their livelihoods. Technical know-how is not enough. In order to be competitive and take advantage of the new opportunities that are arising farmers increasingly must adapt their farm business to market changes and improve efficiency, profitability and income. PNG youth need to take a leading role in adapting to these changes.
The desire to increase income by taking advantage of market opportunities requires farmers to become better decision makers and better at competing in this new environment. The emphasis on the market and the need of farmers to be competitive, calls for better farm management skills. Farm business management skills and knowledge are important for farmers to effectively respond to present day farming challenges. Farm management advice helps farmers to make the right choice between crop enterprises according to individual levels of financial, labour and land availability and at their level of risk adversity. As current farmers age, it is becoming increasingly important that youth have the knowledge and skills to make the right choices to take advantage of market opportunities.
After completing the AgBook farming as a business program, Blasius was able to present and discuss his farm business plan with loan officers from MiBank. Blaisus received his first ever farm loan which he used to purchase labour to expand his cocoa blocks and increase his income.
Several other farmers have now gone onto successfully borrow funds to expand their business.
