ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the need to reduce competition by white planters caused them to lobby the colonial state's specialist branch, the Department of Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries (DASF) to attempt to outlaw, by force, the growth of the smallholder industry. Influence in an industry is achieved only through the exercise of control at some point in the commodity chain and not by legislative right or executive fiat. The agricultural officers did realise, however, that in traditional Gorokan society there was an important element of co- operation and pooling of resources, and they sought to tap this without violating the principle of individual coffee plots. The outcome at the level of Australia-Papua New Guinea coffee trade was similar to that which occurred at the global level for it resulted in an attempt to devise a regulating authority to ensure both a supply of coffee to importers and a satisfactory price level for exporters.
