When you buy coffee and chocolate do you want to know the story about the people who produced the beans?

I bought my first batch of Arabicas Blue Mountain Gold coffee online from Papua New Guinea last year, after sampling the product when I was working in Port Moresby. I was impressed by the flavour, but was also attracted by the story of how this fine variety of coffee - first planted in PNG in the 1930's from seeds imported from Jamaica - is grown mainly by farmers with small plots of coffee trees, using traditional farming methods.

It is not clear to what extent the farmers actually benefit at present from marketing telling that story, but there must be potential for them to obtain greater rewards in future if the combination of a good story and a product of consistently high quality leads to growth of demand for their output.

Before spending a couple of weeks in PNG recently I told people who asked why I was planning to have a holiday in such a dangerous place (please see my last post for an attempt to put those risks in perspective) that one of my reasons for visiting was to see where my coffee came from. As things happened, I didn’t actually get to see where my coffee came from, but I did see a coffee plantation near Goroka. The fruit shown in the photo will turn red over the next few weeks before being ready for harvest.

I also had the opportunity to visit a processing facility in Goroka and to learn a little about the industry from the manager of the firm. He has asked me not to give him any publicity because his firm does not sell directly to the public and gains no benefit from any time he spends showing tourists around. I was fortunate to arrive on his doorstep just as he was about to show his operation to a group of bank officials and to be allowed to tag along.

 It was interesting to see the effort required for quality control, particularly in order to give purchasers of organic coffee (usually grown on small holdings) a high quality product. For example, quality is better when care is taken to only pick ripe fruit and to ensure that beans are properly dried in the sun. If the beans are not dry when they come to the mill they have to be dried using equipment such as that shown below.

The factory tour ended with a coffee tasting which demonstrated large differences between various grades and blends of coffee.

 During my PNG holiday I also visited Madang and had the opportunity to see cocoa being grown. The Madang Resort hotel organised for me a trip to Hobe, a small village not far from Madang. I spent an hour or so with Joel Lalek on his cocoa farm. 

Joel described himself as a subsistence farmer, but his cocoa activity looked fairly commercial to me. His crop is fermented and dried by his brother using the equipment shown below.

Joel buys seedlings from the Cocoa Coconut Research Institute (CCRI).  The photo below shows seedlings at the Stewart Research Station, CCRI.

The research manager of the Stewart Research Station explained to me the origins of PNG cocoa and the aims of the current breeding program. PNG cocoa is based on the Trinitario variety, often used in high-quality dark chocolate. Unfortunately, the variety is susceptible to cocoa pod borer, which has devastated harvests in PNG during the last decade. One of the aims of the breeding program is to provide greater resistance to this pest. Meanwhile, farmers in some areas have had considerable success in controlling pest outbreaks through pruning and sanitation practices e.g. burying diseased pods. 

A question I was turning over in my mind during my PNG visit is why I haven’t found the same opportunities to obtain single source chocolate based on PNG cocoa as I have to purchase PNG coffee. It would be good to be able to find a regular supplier of high quality dark chocolate with a PNG village story attached to it.

It seems likely that better opportunities to buy single source PNG chocolate might arise in future. People who live in the US can already buy chocolate made from PNG beans from Tejas Chocolate. Perhaps the partnership between Cadbury Australia and Monpi Cocoa Exports will eventually provide similar opportunities to Australians.

It would be nice to be able to end this article with some optimistic observations about the opportunities for better returns for coffee and cocoa farmers in PNG arising from the increasing demand of consumers in high income countries to be told the story behind the food and beverages they buy. I have not found any research which would provide a solid basis for such optimism, but I have not spent much time searching the relevant literature. All I can offer at this stage is a glimmer of hope.

It is indisputable that many consumers like to know the story behind some of the products they buy. Wine comes to mind as a prime example. Yet, in recent years we have seen a trend toward commodification of wine sales in supermarkets, with the use of hidden labels and own-brands. That trend is presumably meeting a demand for a product of reasonable quality at a relatively low price. The trend toward commodification may continue for some time, but when people are buying high quality wine they will still look for a label which tells the story of when, where and how it was produced. I guess the pattern of demand is fairly similar for coffee and chocolate.

The characteristics of farming in PNG typically meet a range of the interests and concerns that people are likely to have when they want to know the story behind the products they buy. The fact that the varieties of coffee and chocolate grown in PNG are at the high quality end of the market certainly provides a basis for positive stories. The fact that chemicals are rarely used by village farmers helps to meet some consumer concerns about health and environmental impacts. Telling a story about village farming can also be consistent with marketing arrangements which help meet the concerns that many consumers have about remuneration for farmers.

Most importantly, the stories that PNG farmers can tell are intrinsically interesting because their lives are so different from those lived by most people in high-income countries.

So, dear reader, when you buy coffee and chocolate do you want to know the story about the people who produced the beans?

Is Papua New Guinea a safe place for tourists to visit?

My short answer – based on my recent two weeks holiday – is that it is safe for tourists to visit PNG, provided they take sensible precautions.

As I wrote that sentence I was sitting in the terminal at Nadzab airport, fully aware that it had been the scene of a holdup by a group of 30 armed men a couple of months ago. I am not a particularly intrepid traveller, but I felt safe, given the number of people in the terminal – about 100 in the Airlines PNG area where I was sitting - with quite a few security guards not far away.

 

At the time of the hold-up, government officials claimed that Nadzab airport, which serves Lae - the second largest city in PNG - is not much used by foreign tourists. That claim is probably true. During the five hours I spent in the terminal I did not see many people who looked like foreign tourists.

However, it seems odd to me that there are not greater numbers of foreign tourists passing through Nadzab airport. Lae seems to be well located to be a natural hub for air travel, as well as for land and sea transport. Perhaps the accidents of history which made Port Moresby the administrative centre of the country have impeded the development of Lae as a hub for air travel.

My sojourn in the terminal at Nadzab airport occurred in the latter part of my visit to PNG. I spent a more enjoyable day looking around Lae earlier in my visit. Of the places I visited in PNG, Lae is probably the least safe, but the security available there seemed more than adequate. The streets of Lae appeared to be quite peaceful through the grill on the windows of the Guard Dog Security vehicle that took me to and from the airport and around Lae.

I had not expected any problems in finding a tourist operator to take me to places of interest to me in Lae. However, the operator I was referred to told me that city tours had been discontinued because tourists had become an endangered species. Reception staff at the Melanesian hotel arranged for Guard Dog Security to take me to the places of interest to me - the Lae War Cemetery and Rainforest Habitat - for a reasonable fee.

The war cemetery is well worth visiting, particularly for those, like myself, who have relatives who fought on the Kokoda track. The cemetery is well-maintained by the Australian government. At the time of my visit, there were no other visitors present. I was given a great deal of help to find the names of my relatives, but the lack of other visitors is a sad commentary on the state of foreign tourism in Lae.

The Rainforest Habitat was worth visiting to see some of the local birdlife, even though I didn’t get to see a bird of paradise. The security man who accompanied me said that there had been more to see at the facility a few years ago. Apparently too few people are visiting to generate the revenue required for the facility to be properly maintained. While I was at this tourist attraction I think there was only one other visitor there.

The other places I visited were Port Moresby, the capital, Goroka, in the Eastern Highlands, and Madang, on the north coast. Port Moresby is less safe than the other two towns.

It is unsafe for tourists to walk around most parts of Port Moresby alone except within the boundaries of major hotels, modern shopping malls and other locations where security is provided. The same applies to local residents. Tourists are more fortunate than most of the locals because they can afford to be transported safely from one secure area to another.

I had no hesitation in relying on taxis for travel in Port Moresby during my current visit. As a foreigner I had expected to be charged more than locals, but that didn’t happen when staff at Holiday Inn negotiated with the taxi drivers on my behalf. Disputes were avoided by negotiating the fare prior to travel and ensuring that the driver had change available for large notes when that was required.

Tourist guides suggest that some taxi firms in Port Moresby are more reliable than others but, as far as I am aware, there is no taxi firm that is sufficiently safe to be recommended for women to use to travel alone at night.

Port Moresby has tourist attractions that are well worth visiting during daylight hours, including the National Museum and Parliament Haus (see below).  It is possible for tourists to visit these places without much risk to personal safety.

When I arrived in Goroka, the bus from the Bird of Paradise Hotel was not there to meet me. Perhaps the plane arrived early. In any case, Peter Samuel, a young man whom I had just met on the plane, offered to walk with me to the hotel which would have been no more than a couple of hundred metres from the airport terminal. Peter saw me safely to the hotel, but as I was walking with him along the street shown below, the thought occurred to me that if I was advising another traveller in that situation, I would have suggested that they should ring the hotel and wait to be picked up.

Peter Samuel and I exchanged phone numbers and he later sent me this message:

“Please, when you are in Australia remember me and give my phone number to one of the Australian Girl to get Courtship with me”.

I don’t normally do this kind of thing, but if any young women reading this would like to get in touch with a young man from the Eastern Highlands of PNG, who has shown kindness to at least one stranger, I am willing to pass their phone numbers to Peter.

I felt safe walking around Goroka by myself, but obtained the services of a guide to visit a coffee plantation (which I will write about in a subsequent post) and to visit the Saturday market which is a short walk away from the town centre. I was impressed by the fresh vegetables on sale at the market.

In Madang I stayed at the Madang Resort, a magnificent hotel, at the gateway to the harbour and close to the town. The hotel arranged a trip to a local village for me to see a cocoa being grown. I will write more about that subsequently.)

As in Goroka, I felt safe walking around Madang during daylight hours. I felt particularly safe walking around on my second day because a cruise ship, Pacific Dawn, was docked in the harbour for the day.

It was particularly interesting for me to compare my experience wandering around by myself with the experience of a couple I met from the cruise ship. The photo shows Tania and Peter with a couple of ladies from the Country Women’s Association (CWA), who had just sold them some new hats.

Cruise ships seem to be an ideal way for people to see coastal towns in safety and to experience organised sight-seeing and cultural experiences. The downside for people on the cruise ships is that they don’t get to see the highlands and don’t have as much interaction with local people. The photo shows the Pacific Dawn leaving Madang harbour.

In my view the risks in organising my own itinerary to travel around PNG were minimal because I was able to stay in good hotels and to pay people to accompany me when necessary. Despite PNG’s reputation as a dangerous place to visit, many of the people I met went out of their way to protect my safety, as well as to make me feel welcome.  

Is there reliable evidence that people can learn to be happier?

There is plenty of evidence that people who use cognitive reappraisal strategies -  for example, changing the way they think about situations in order to reduce negative emotion – tend to have higher life satisfaction than those who try to suppress negative emotion. There is also a growing body of research findings that such skills can be learned and that some reappraisal strategies are more effective than others.

A recent study by Bryan Denny and Kevin Ochsner compared the effects of training using two common variants of reappraisal: distancing and reinterpretation. Distancing involves reappraisal of an emotional event by viewing it from the perspective of a third person observer or an objective, impartial observer. Reinterpretation involves reappraisal by changing the meaning of actions, context or outcomes e.g. by inventing a more positive story to interpret the event.

The 103 participants in the study were divided into three groups: on receiving training only in distancing; one receiving training only in reinterpretation and a third group that was asked to respond naturally to stimuli, but not trained in any form of reappraisal. The training was provided in four sessions separated by 2-5 days. Participants were presented with images and asked to let themselves respond naturally. Those who had been given reappraisal training were also asked to reappraise images.

Both distancing and reinterpretation led to drops in self-reported negative emotional responses over the four sessions. Participants in the distancing group also experienced drops in negative emotional response when they were asked to respond naturally. The results suggest that people can learn to make distancing a habitual response to emotional stimuli during a relatively short training course.

In another recent study Rachel Ranney, Emma Bruehlman-Senecal and Ozlem Ayduk compared the impact of three brief online cognitive reappraisal interventions: self-distancing (watching a personal negative experience as a fly on the wall); temporal distancing (considering the event from the perspective of their future selves); and positive reframing (identifying positive aspects of the experience). The results showed training in temporal distancing to be effective in raising well-being and positive reframing to be effective in reducing ill-being.

I went looking for evidence that people can learn to be happier to follow-up my preceding post about regret. I concluded that post by resisting the temptation to suggest that people who suffer from regrets that do not serve a useful purpose should learn cognitive retraining. At that stage I was not able to cite reliable evidence that such training was effective. Having found some evidence, however, I am not still not sure how effective it would be in dealing with regrets.

If someone regrets a bad choice made a long time ago, temporal distancing is unlikely to work. Viewing the choice as an impartial observer might not help either if it was a really bad choice. Positive reframing could help the person concerned to see something positive in the experience – for example, it could be seen as a learning experience, inducing positive changes in personality. Such reframing is likely to be difficult, however, if the person concerned believes that personality is fixed for life.

There is evidence that the implicit theories that people have about the extent to which attributes such as personality can change has important implications for their mental health. A recent study by Hans Schroder, Sindes Dawood, Matthew Yalch, Brent Donnellan and Jason Moser has shown that people who believe that their attributes can change report greater use of cognitive reappraisal and fewer mental health symptoms. This raises the question of whether people who currently believe that their attributes are set in stone are capable of learning to adopt a mind-set more conducive to improvement.

If your satisfaction with life is adversely affected by regret, what should you do about it?

The purpose of feelings of regret is presumably to help us to make better choices. That suggests that the best way to deal with regret is to make sure we make better choices in future. But regret can also put people into a frame of mind where they make poor choices and find it difficult to enjoy of life.

Regret does not feature prominently in conventional economic theory, even though everyone knows that sensible people take into account the potential for regret when they make decisions.  I suppose that is because Max U, the rational economic man of economic theory, does not let potential for regret prevent him from seeking to maximize utility. Even when economists allow for the possibility that Max might feel losses from the status quo to a greater extent than gains (as in prospect theory), the potential for disappointment and regret still does not come into consideration in the choices he makes.

It is normal for humans to feel disappointment when outcomes are worse than expected – for example when an investment fails even though we have good reasons to expect it to succeed. We feel regret about the opportunities we have foregone in making such investments. Regret is likely to be particularly intense if you mortgage your home to fund an unsuccessful investment.

It usually makes sense for people to take account of the potential for regret in making choices. It is also possible, however, for regret to lead people to make poor choices – choices they later regret. For example, when share prices slump, people who are unduly influenced by regret about the losses they have experienced may decide precipitously to reallocate funds to less risky investments, and later regret that they have sold at the bottom of the market. Alternatively, they may gamble to recover past losses (for example, by buying more shares) and come to regret that choice if the market falls even further. Some economic studies, for example theoretical and experimental work by Philip Strack and Paul Viefers, illustrates the potential for regret to influence decisions in this way.

There is some evidence that regret can have a large impact on life satisfaction. The results of a recent study by Olivia Pethel and Yiewei Chen seem particularly interesting, since these authors use a measure of the intensity of regret, in addition to indicators of negative decision outcomes and the tendency of people to feel regret. The study focuses on mature adults, people over age 35, who are old enough to have had opportunities to make decisions which they might regret. The findings of the study should probably be viewed with caution because of the small size of the sample (119 adults) sex composition (71% female) and the potential for bias in the informal sample selection process that was used.

The regret intensity variable used in the study was constructed by asking people how much they regretted having made wrong choices in various aspects of their life on a 5 point scale (1 = no regret; 5 = very strongly regret) and averaging across the scores. The results of the regression analysis suggest that “very strongly regretting” a wide range of choices in life would be likely to have a large impact on life satisfaction – reducing it by about 1.6 points on the 7 point scale used in the study.

The authors suggest that people who have lower levels of regret intensity may have developed effective emotional regulation strategies in dealing with life regrets. Unfortunately the study does not directly test the use of regulation strategies.  However, the regression results support previous findings that cognitive reappraisal - use of emotion regulation strategies that change the way situations that elicit negative emotions are viewed - has a positive impact on life satisfaction.

I will resist the temptation to conclude that everyone should be taught the bygones principle - much loved by economists - that decisions should focus only on future costs and benefits, leaving aside regrets about the past. In my experience, the bygones principle is much easier to apply to public policy than to one's private life. 

I will also resist the temptation to conclude that people who are allowing regrets to interfere with their enjoyment of life should learn cognitive reappraisal skills. It would be easy to draw upon my own personal experience to suggest ways people might be able to acquire such skills, but at this stage I can't cite reliable studies testing what works and what doesn't work.