Maize holds greater kernels of potential for rural smallholders in Tonga.

15 Dec Maize holds greater kernels of potential for rural smallholders in Tonga.

2023/02/02 – The global pandemic, economic crises as well as the Ukrainian-Russian war heightened food security risks globally, but even more so for the Pacific Islands. Increasing disruptions to domestic and international food supply chains continue to exacerbate issues as smaller economies are neglected by shipping companies to focus on more lucrative markets.

Domestically, places such as Fiji experienced disruptions in upstream food supply chains during the height of COVID-19 due to mobility restrictions, hinderance to operations and logistics. As tourism immediately came to a halt and with a lack of social protection – many smallholder farmers faced excess amounts of agricultural production that were destined for the tourism industry.

This leaves us with the question of what can small islands in the Pacific such as Tonga do to mitigate these global impacts that have significant trickle-down effects to our region? Most of MORDI Tonga’s work focus on rural communities and empowering community members through agriculture. As such, there have been multiple initiatives to help improve agricultural production for these communities who are most vulnerable to climate change, disasters and other external shocks.

Most notably are propagation and multiplication of various climate resilient crops, sourced through regional cooperation with CePACT. MORDI Tonga has also established a seed bank with cooling and storage facilities on its premises. The efforts were borne out of the necessity to have a gene pool available to the communities.

In its recent efforts to add to the growing resources, MORDI Tonga has added existing and new genotypes of maize from International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT). MORDI Tonga received 28 maize varieties in total from CIMMYT.

From a nutritional perspective, maize is a rich source of carbohydrates, protein and fiber. It is also a great source of vitamins and minerals such as thiamine, niacin and iron. Maize is central to many cultural diets around the world and while it has been introduced to the Pacific it has many potentials to address future food security risks. Research in Nepal has revealed biofortified maize genotypes have been successful in reducing hidden hunger and provided much needed nutrition deficiencies.

Additionally, maize is a relatively easy crop to grow and is adaptable to a wide range of growing conditions and is drought tolerant. This makes it a favourable choice for many farmers in Tonga, where climatic conditions are very challenging. Maize is also relatively low maintenance crop requiring very minimal inputs such as irrigation or fertilizer – which reduces cost of production for farmers.

Introducing new genotypes to the Pacific has various positive implications of which can improve yield, become more pest and disease resilient, and more tolerant to environmental stress. As a result, farmers are able to increase productivity, reduce costs of production, improve overall quality of their crops. This in turn can contribute to increased food security, provide pathways for economic growth and address national health issues.