1 Pa'anga - Taufa'ahau Tupou IV FAO

The FAO coinage program of the 1970s commissioned member nations to mint coins carrying agricultural development messaging, funded partly as a way to distribute the organization's reach into everyday commerce. Tonga's participation produced a small number of issues that saw genuine circulation rather than the souvenir-shelf fate that met many FAO coins from smaller nations. Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, who reigned from 1965 until his death in 2006, was an active participant in international development programs during this period, lending the issue a degree of official enthusiasm that some FAO participant nations conspicuously lacked.