IFAD / FIJI WOMEN FARMERS
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STORY: IFAD / FIJI WOMEN FARMERS
TRT: 04:28
SOURCE: IFAD
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 10, 11 SEPTEMBER 2022, MAURATOU, FIJI
1. Various shots, Aliti Mere on her farm
2. market, imported flours
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Aliti Mere, Cassava Farmer:
“Yes, I've noticed its’s really gone up, the prices of the fuel, the food, food items. Everything in the supermarket it really has gone up”
4. Various shots, farmers planting in their fields
5. Aerial shot, farmers planting in the fields
6. Various shots, farmers peeling the cassava
7. Various shots, women making flour with the cassava
8. Various shots, cassava being bagged
9. Various shots, Aliti making food with the cassava
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Aliti Mere, Cassava Farmer:
“Yes, it’s more nutritious and it’s easier to make our own flour because the flour we get it from the supermarket now and it’s really expensive. And now we just get the, we just pull out the cassava, we come and do our own cassava and we do our own flour.”
11. Various shots, tractor and farmers working together in the fields in Fiji, planting crops and weeding
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Aliti Mere, Cassava Farmer:
“Soulesolvaki is like volunteers from other farmers. Here in Mauratou we in our cluster we have about 25 farmers.”
13. Aerial shot, farmers carrying sticks
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Aliti Mere, Cassava Farmer:
“We finish from one farm then we go to another farm.”
15. Various shots, pulling up the cassava
16. Various shots, sealing the bags of Cassava
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Elisha Joshua, Project Manager, Piras:
“For decades they were relying on subsistence farming converting them from subsistence to semi- commercial was a big shift for them.”
18. Various shots, filling up biogas container
19. Various shots, biogas oil cooking on stove
20. SOUNDBITE (English) Aliti Mere, Cassava Farmer:
“Without the programme we would have struggled a lot especially the prices of the things have gone up this time.”
21. Various shots, women laying out the cassava paste
22. SOUNDBITE (English) Aliti Mere, Cassava Farmer:
“It’s not just where we are, we can move up to other levels and we hope to do our planting so we can extend and export it back to Australia countries and other countries too and specially to decrease the poverty level in our society.”
23. Close up, woman writing on the flour bag
24. Wide shot, Fiji farmers association members saying Bula
Women and men around the world have been feeling the full impact of the rising cost of living. In Fiji imported food prices have gone up on average by 7 percent leaving families searching for cheaper alternatives.
To address the problem, women farmers in Fiji have been learning how to substitute imported goods like flour with homegrown varieties and also to produce alternatives to what they are used to eating. They work together to save labour time and costs and produce their own biogas to use as cooking fuel.
Alita is a cassava farmer from Fiji. Like many women from her country, she used to rely heavily on imported food to feed her family. All that changed when first the COVID pandemic and then the war in Ukraine limited imports and pushed up prices.
SOUNDBITE (English) Aliti Mere, Cassava Farmer:
“Yes, I've noticed its’s really gone up, the prices of the fuel, the food, food items. Everything in the supermarket it really has gone up”
The Pacific Islands Rural and Agriculture Stimulus Facility or PIRAS project funded by the Australian government and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has taught her how to make the most of indigenous crops that she was already growing like cassava.
She learnt how to make flour with cassava as a good substitute for the imported variety.
SOUNDBITE (English) Aliti Mere, Cassava Farmer:
“Yes, it’s more nutritious and it’s easier to make our own flour because the flour we get it from the supermarket now and it’s really expensive. And now we just get the, we just pull out the cassava, we come and do our own cassava and we do our own flour.”
The crop is also resilient to the changing climate, giving them a steady supply of food to eat and sell.
The project also supported community food systems to help drive economic recovery. It has helped to revive an ancient Fijian custom called Solesolevaki.
Solesolevaki is a traditional concept of working together for the common good without expecting an individual reward.
SOUNDBITE (English) Aliti Mere, Cassava Farmer:
“We finish from one farm then we go to another farm.”
Labour intensive tasks like tilling, planting and harvesting are carried out by wider groups of neighbouring farmers or clusters. Resources are shared and tasks are streamlined. So that the clusters can work faster and more efficiently than individual farmers.
SOUNDBITE (English) Elisha Joshua, Project Manager, Piras:
“For decades they were relying on subsistence farming converting them from subsistence to semi- commercial was a big shift for them.”
Farmers like Aliti also received biogas units which the community uses as alternative sources of fuel and fertiliser- much needed to cope with the current cost of living crisis.
SOUNDBITE (English) Aliti Mere, Cassava Farmer:
“Without the programme we would have struggled a lot especially the prices of the things have gone up this time.”
Climate change and rising imported food and fuel prices may now be the norm here in Fiji, but these poor rural women have their own fuel, their own food and their community to help them become more resilient.
SOUNDBITE (English) Aliti Mere, Cassava Farmer:
“It’s not just where we are, we can move up to other levels and we hope to do our planting so we can extend and export it back to Australia countries and other countries too and specially to decrease the poverty level in our society.”
With climate change intensifying and more disruptions in food value chains to be expected in coming years and decades, the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of Australia have been at work on a project that invests in small-scale farming communities in the Pacific, teaching them how to deal with shocks like climate change and better cope with the cost-of-living crisis by growing more local food today and in the future.