Members of the community of Nagado near Nadi flocked to the livestock training provided by SPC's Animal Health and Production team on Thursday 24 October 2013. SPC has also provided two fully equipped chicken sheds and 200 meat chickens, as well as feed costing up to FJD 8,000 to the community of Nagado.

Nagado is a farming community located in the Vaturu district in Nadi, where there are few economic opportunities in agriculture and many of the farming methods used are not sustainable. In addition, family nutrition is poor and unvaried, which leads to health problems. The need for new economic opportunities and better nutrition in Nagado was identified during a recently conducted participatory rural appraisal.Community members were eager to receive hands-on experience at the workshop, which was mainly on poultry farming, describing the different types of chickens, how to breed them, and how to establish and maintain a poultry farm. They were also taught about waste management, and how to protect the poultry from prey and also from weather changes.

Wednesday, 24 July 2013 11:47

In partnership with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is conducting a regional workshop to raise awareness on the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. This workshop aims to develop ideas on how the guidelines can be used to support the improvement of the governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the Pacific Islands.

The Pacific Islands workshop takes place 23–26 July 2013 in Nadi, Fiji.

These guidelines represent an unprecedented international agreement. This was officially endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security in May 2012. Since then, their implementation has been encouraged by the UN General Assembly, Rio +20 declaration, G20, Francophone Parliamentary Assembly and Ministers from 80 countries at the recent 5th Berlin Agriculture Ministers’ Summit.

Sixteen people from the community of Koroiyaca in Fiji were specially selected by their village to take part in disaster risk reduction training provided by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) together with Act for Peace (AfP) and the Ba Provincial Council.  Koroiyaca is located in the lower catchment of Sabeto, Nadi, and sits in a flood plain so is vulnerable to flooding, cyclones and other natural disasters.

The training is part of an integrated approach to building resilience in selected communities in six countries under the Vegetation and Land Cover Mapping and Improving Food Security for Building Resilience to a Changing Climate in Pacific Island Communities project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) has teamed up with the Fiji Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forests to establish a nursery in Nagado, Fiji, to help families raise vegetables, crops and trees in their home gardens. This project will help provide a more diverse diet to improve family nutrition and also open up new economic opportunities as community members can sell vegetable products in nearby markets.

To help maximise the benefit to the village, SPC provided a nursery training session for the Nagado community on 27 June 2013. The training was provided through SPC’s Vegetation and Land Cover Mapping and Improving Food Security for Building Resilience to a Changing Climate in Pacific Island Communities project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Nagado is a farming community located in the Vaturu district in Nadi, where there are few economic opportunities in agriculture and many of the farming methods used are not sustainable. In addition, family nutrition is poor and unvaried, which leads to other health problems. The need for new economic opportunities and better nutrition in Nagado was identified during a recently conducted participatory rural appraisal.

Community vegetable gardening, together with agroforestry practices, has been one of the climate change and food security adaptation interventions identified to supplement food sources for many low-income people in the Sabeto catchment, the USAID project site for Fiji. Community vegetable gardening also teaches young children that food is not a product of the supermarket, but the result of tilling and nurturing the soil. The project aims to enhance the living conditions in Nagado by not only improving nutrition, but also augmenting family income.