| ID: | 83732 |
|---|---|
| Country: | Kiribati |
| Title: | Kiribati – Pacific Islands Rural and Agriculture Stimulus Facility (PIRAS) – November 2022 |
| Description: |
Meretia Noa from Veti Kainga on Betio Island, South Tarawa worries about her community's fragile state caused by the COVID pandemic and extreme climactic conditions, like natural disasters and rising sea levels, affecting their food security and livelihoods. Recognizing her vulnerability, PIRAS equipped Meretia with farming tools, a 5,000-litre water tank, and comprehensive training on sustainable farming practices. Through the various training programs, she learned about food processing and preservation, planting seeds, transplanting seedlings and managing plant growth. She also learned how to use flakes scaled from rusty cans, mixed with dried leaves, grass clippings, yard trim, and food scraps to make compost for enriching the sandy island soil. The composting technique helps reduce accumulation of waste and addresses climate change issues, such as drought and higher than normal temperatures. PIRAS provided her with seeds, seedlings, hand tools, a wheelbarrow and shade cloth. With these inputs and training, Meretia has expanded the variety and quantity of vegetables she is able to grow, thus improving her household nutrition. She is also able to sell the surplus at the local roadside market, which provides her with some additional income. Meretia became an inspiration to her community, and gladly shared her new knowledge about sustainable agricultural practices with others. Previously, Meretia depended on her husband’s fishing job as the sole source of income for her household. Her newfound resilience has had a profound impact on her family. The intervention was timely as the increase in fuel costs and high tidal currents has greatly hindered her husband’s fishing activities. Meretia’s bure (traditional home), like so many others in her village, is alarmingly close to the rising sea. She lives with the constant worry that even the slightest high tide could overflow the makeshift barriers she has built to protect her home garden, destroying the vegetables she works so hard to cultivate. Launched in 2022 in collaboration between IFAD and the Australian Government, the Pacific Islands Rural and Agriculture Stimulus (PIRAS) Facility is a regional initiative that aims to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural island households. The programme supports food system and economic recovery by prioritizing food self-reliance, improving local nutrition and developing sustainable, equitable agricultural livelihood opportunities for rural communities in Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. In Kiribati, PIRAS works in collaboration with the Atolls Food Future Project, implemented by Live & Learn Environmental Education, and focuses on increasing farm production, nutrition and climate resilience by providing farmers and gardeners with nutrition-sensitive seedlings and planting materials, labour-saving tools, and equipment. It trains them in the safe use and maintenance of water tanks, composting production and soil preparation, and liquid fertilizer production and application. |
| Size: | 13.33 MB; 5472 x 3648 pixels; 463 x 309 mm (print at 300 DPI); 1448 x 965 mm (screen at 96 DPI); |
| Show more details: | Barbara Gravelli |
| Copyright: | ©IFAD/Barbara Gravelli |
| Categories: | New from Asia and the Pacific |
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