Small female group finds solace amongst HTHH and COVID in their garden

15 Dec Small female group finds solace amongst HTHH and COVID in their garden

PIRAS is regional initiative made possible through the collaboration of the Government of Tonga, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)’s and the Australian Government. The stimulus was initially aimed to assist rural farmers recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19 through improved income generation, food security and nutrition.

However, due to the HTTH eruption, tsunami followed closely by COVID-19 community transmissions and lockdowns – the project was sidelined momentarily while response efforts were implemented. As the ash settled, a clearer understanding of affected communities came to light – Tongatapu (and nearby islands namely ‘Atata and ‘Eueiki), ‘Eua and Ha’apai.

PIRAS activities started with land clearing and planting to tax allotments to communities in Western district of Tongatapu. Shortly after nursery communities were established where women’s groups cultivated vegetables, all in the efforts to address possible food shortages.

The women’s groups were assisted with thorough training by MORDI Tonga staff members. The initial steps were land preparation carried out by ploughing of the land and setting up fences to keep out roaming livestock. The women were shown how to germinate seeds they sowed in seed beds. As the the seeds broke through the staff were out again to show how to transplant them and maintain them until it was ready to harvest. Several training in best practices of farming methods were shared with groups including how to make their own liquid manure fertilizer using organic materials available to many.

Many of the women groups much like the Ha’ato’a group of Matahau community experienced vegetable growing for the very first time. Their careful and meticulous nature for gardening shows as each row of greens are neatly lined. It was evident from their excitement that this new venture has brought much more than the prospects of accessing more nutritious foods.

Seini Tatafu (34)

This is the first time for us to grow vegetables and at this level. We usually are a group that work on community beautification activities and we would hold community inspections that is being led by the Ministry of Tourism.

It was very exciting for us when we learned we could be a part of this project and because of which we are helping other groups here in the community to get their gardens set up. They look to us now because they can see how much our hard work has paid off.

We work well together because we’ve worked together in the past, we’re related to each other. Doing gardening has been so much fun with the women here together we get to socialize more often. It has been a fun competition between us as grow together to see who has the best looking garden.

We’re so surprised at how easy this is and how much we have saved doing things to improve our garden with the help of the project. We’re grateful for the tools and training we’ve had from the staff, it’s helped us figure out things as we go along.

This will save us a lot of money having to buy vegetables from the market but most importantly I now know how to grow my own vegetables. Before all this I was only able to buy vegetables for special occasions. Now with this vegetable garden I’m able to provide vegetables to my family, I’ve never had that before.

Ilaisaane Tatafu (26)

Previously there was one initiative that was vegetable gardening but they were handing out seedlings and was not like this where you would come and check up on us regularly to see how far we have come.

This is important to our families because we don’t have a job and prices of vegetables are very expensive. We are so happy especially since the team are active in engaging with us and it really motivates us to do what we are doing.

About twice a day in the morning and evening we gather here to do our gardening and it’s been really a fun time for us. It was something we really enjoyed because during lockdown it really confined us to our own homes.

The vegetables will be of great use for us and our families and even though most of us on this block belong to the group the ones who aren’t we make sure we share some of the seedlings with them and even our harvest at some point.

Most of us that belong to this group are related either by blood or marriage

Our group are very active in the community development committee and we’ve been mostly cleaning the town. This is a new step for us and I don’t believe we would’ve been able to set this up or even think of starting a garden like this if it weren’t for the project.

Sometimes we would stay out here in the evenings until the street lights turn on each watering their own plot and such.

Lealofi Takeifanga (31)

I intend to share as much as I can with those who need it when it’s harvest time, there are some people who I have in mind. It’s my first time growing vegetables so at the moment it’s not my first intention to sell these but who knows if it does get to that point I just might.

I’m just happy that we can have this much vegetables available because at the moment the biggest reason why we couldn’t have vegetables daily is because of how expensive it is.

It was always a dream to have a vegetable garden, to grow and eat from but I never thought it would come true. We’re so lucky that we can also have the assistance from the staff to show us how to grow vegetables because we all didn’t know how to. This is our very first time to grow vegetables.

We were so unsure of things that we would ask the staff to come out and check to see if we were doing things correctly.

I’m certain that we have the confidence now to continue growing vegetables because we can see how much it benefits us. Despite having to stand in the sun to weed and all of that but we won’t always have the money to keep buying vegetables. The elderly are the ones that are always wanting to have vegetables in every meal and even though it’s hard we have to make that extra effort to get them what they want.

Gardening here has become something we look forward to, when we finish church services in the morning during weekdays we come here and some of the women are already here. We would gather here in the evenings and just tend to our gardens laughing and really having a great time. It was like we were trying to outdo the other to see who had the best garden.

The training and assistance we have from the staff has been very helpful for us. One of the perfect examples of this is the liquid manure fertilizer training we had that are in those barrels over there. We started to notice some of the plants being infested with bugs and we tried the fertilizer and much to our surprise it stopped.