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Soil exhaustion or poor farming practices will now be issues of the past for many Lomawai farmers in the province of Nadroga.

The villagers went through extensive food and nutrition security, community resilience, and economic sufficiency training that will promote best farming practices.

The training was organized by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency Fiji and funded by the Latter Day Saints charities.

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ADRA Fiji Project Manager, Ilimeleki Kaiyanuyanu says requests were submitted by some communities during the lockdown, seeking assistance to deal with food security issues.

“Different communities have different challenges, and we also have those in our communities, not only here in Lomawai but in other communities as well. That is the good thing about conducting baseline surveys; we know areas that need an intervention that has to be targeted for that particular community. “

Kaiyanuyanu says resilience within our households and communities needs to be strengthened, so people can better deal with any hazard or unforeseen circumstance in the future.

“We want communities to be able to stand up rather than lie down while facing this difficult situation. As we all know, people have been laid off from their employment and that is quite a very tough situation.”

Turaga ni Koro of Lomawai Village, Vatilio Ruwai, says they are thankful for the assistance.

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“We are thankful to be allowed to attend this training. We now understand the type of crops or vegetables to plant on the type of soil we have in our area.”

Kaiyanuyanu stresses that this is also an opportunity to increase food and nutrition security as well as economic independence in Fiji.

Villagers benefitting from this initiative are Navatuyaba and Nabaka in the Central Division, Lomawai Village, and a few communities in the greater Nadi area.