ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses a new 20-hectare coffee development programme to show the patterns of class conflict and class struggle that currently exist in the Papua New Guinea industry. It argues that class struggle is indirect and truncated, but nonetheless real. The chapter examines the implementation of the 20-hectare projects. In August 1978 the Minister for Primary Industry Mr Julius Chan announced that the government would offer maximum support for the establishment of 20-hectare coffee development blocks. The idea behind these 'intermediate' plantations was that smallholders would pool land into a larger production unit and make free labour available in the early stages of the project for the purposes of clearing the land and planting the coffee seed. The initial problem facing the development of 20-hectare projects was the land barrier. The breakthrough in devising a new mechanism came when it was realised that the state might lease land as opposed to merely authorising transfers from customary owners.
