COULD it be that Papua New Guinea's first national farm organisation will be created by women?
How interesting would that be? And what a contrast to Australia, where farming and farming politics has been predominantly shaped by men.
Queensland beef cattle farmer Joy Deguara, who has just returned from PNG, says our PNG counterparts have some way to go before they achieve this, but she doesn't dismiss its likelihood altogether.
"I am sure they are a long way from making such inroads, but given the number of women involved in food production in PNG, maybe that's possible," she says.
Joy - and Victorian farmers and agricultural leaders, including Cathy McGowan from Indigo Valley near Beechworth and Val Lang, a wool producer from Lismore in southwest Victoria - has just spent a week in PNG meeting with the new PNG Women in Agriculture Development Foundation.
Launched in October, the foundation is a bold attempt to bring together hundreds of women's groups across the country under one national umbrella.
Why bold?
Well, first, women do 95 per cent of the work there, producing all the food (mostly from small scale gardens), but as I found out for myself when I visited there in 2007, come market day their husbands take the money.
Secondly, they face a weighty cultural history in which they have been (and in some cases still are) cast as tradeable commodities in return for valuables such as pigs. And thirdly, transport and communications are a challenge.
Our venturing Australian delegation discovered this first-hand last week when the planned trip from Port Moresby to Wewak on PNG's northern coast was cancelled after an earthquake left a hole in the Wewak airstrip.
Despite this, the delegation got to work in Port Moresby and up in Lae, in the fertile Markham Valley (where Australian interests are behind some large-scale vegetation wrecking and land development), where they and the PNG women nutted out a strategic plan for the umbrella organisation.
They set five goals: to build the group's leadership capabilities, to promote itself, to boost training in agricultural practices, to boost governance skills and to form alliances with those who can help.
All this is very honourable.
Out in the fields, the reality of the transition taking place in PNG is more palpable. Joy noted, for example, the needs of a southern highlander representing 57 groups from her region.
"The people in that area used to be hunters and gatherers and now they are trying to turn into farmers. They want people who can help them plant crops, who can tell them how to farm."
Val Lang says a show put on for the delegation in Lae, sporting that region's gorgeous flowers, suggests that PNG has potential as a flower exporter.
Val is vice-president of Australian Women in Agriculture, (a small but active organisation that gets to bend the ear of federal ministers) and is keen to strengthen the links with PNG.
Morale-boosting support and genuine friendship is what it's all about, says Val.
A national farm organisation formed and led by women in PNG might be icing on the cake.
