Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Strengthening Food Security in the Solomon Islands

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	Louise Hunt reports on the successful efforts of a community group on the Solomon Islands' Weather Coast to teach livelihood skills and community capacity strengthening to its people.
A freelance journalist, the author spent six months in 2005 in the Solomon Islands working as a volunteer with the Turusuala Community Based Training Centre and the Kastom Gaden Association on Guadalcanal Island.

The Solomon Islands is an archipelago made up of ten islands lying between the Pacific Ocean and the Solomon Sea. The Weather Coast, on the Pacific Ocean side of Guadalcanal Island, is only about 30 kilometres from the Solomon Islands' capital of Honiara, as the crow flies. But it's one of the poorest, most isolated regions in the South Pacific.

Behind its beaten coastline and sheer cliff faces lies a wall of rugged mountains matted in primary rainforest. It's a three-day arduous hike to the nearest truck road. By sea, the journey to town takes six hours in an outboard motor-boat amidst ocean swells easily reaching 20 feet on a fine day. Soaring fuel prices mean chartering a small boat costs as much as a flight from the United Kingdom to New Zealand. For most people, the cargo ship from Honiara is their only chance to sell crops at the central market and buy-in additional food supplies. In October 2005, the ship had not returned in three months.

Then there's the weather. As its name suggests, there's a lot of it. Between the nine months of April and January, the Weather Coast is deluged. The region receives between 5000-8000mm of rainfall annually. Cyclones frequently visit and the broad rivers that lie between market, school and church, flood and detach already isolated communities. During this time, the gardens, which are the main source of food and income, become so waterlogged that it's possible to canoe across them. This is also known as the hungry time, when many people exist only on bananas and coconuts.

Conflict increases food shortage problems

Added to its natural problems, the Weather Coast's already vulnerable food security situation became more tenuous during the ethnic tensions that brought five years of unprecedented violence from 1999. The conflict grew because of resentment of the people of Guadalcanal over the increasing population of non-indigenous settlers, coming mainly from the island of Malaita which lies to the east. The feeling was particularly vehement on the Weather Coast, where people were increasingly frustrated by lack of development services, while other parts of the Solomons seemed to be benefiting from government and overseas support. In retaliation, Weather Coast leaders - including the notorious Harold Keke - formed the Guadalcanal Liberation Front, to forcibly remove the migrants.

During this time, the people of the Weather Coast not only lived in fear of attacks by Malaitan rebels and the government, they also feared the Guadalcanal Liberation Front, which turned on its own people subjecting them to harassment, extortion, rape and murder. Many were forced to flee from their homes into the highlands, leaving behind their subsistence gardens.

A report by the Kastom Gaden Association, a Solomon Island community development non-governmental organization, published in October 2005, assessed the food security and livelihood situation on the Weather Coast. It found the conflict directly contributed to food shortages experienced over recent years. It also found that severe under-development on the Weather Coast was as much a contributing factor to the tensions as resentment of other ethnic groups.

A fragile peace returned to the Weather Coast with the arrival of the Australasian and Pacific Islander police force, the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands, in 2003 and the incarceration of most of the militia leaders, including Harold Keke. Communities are trying to put their traumatized past behind them, but many still have little confidence in seeing development similar to that occurring in other parts of the Solomon Islands.

Training centre educating on food security

But one Weather Coast community has chosen not to wait in vain for government funds and big international aid grants and has positively directed its fighting spirit to start up an independent training centre, teaching unemployed youths skills to develop their communities and their livelihood prospects. It is also single-handedly attempting to tackle endemic food shortage problems by re-educating communities on sustainable agriculture and supporting families in food-processing enterprises, which have, for the first time, begun to generate regular and significant incomes.

The Turusuala Community Based Training Centre in Avuavu Ward instantly dispels any gloom-laden preconceptions of the Weather Coast. It is perched in luminous green foothills with a mesmerizing view over Lake Lauvi, the Solomons' second biggest lake. The centre is making good use of an abandoned government research station, now transformed into classrooms and dormitories. In the valley below, forests have been cleared for a model farm, where students are taught sustainable agriculture methods for indigenous crops such as sweet potato, cassava, taro and yam and a variety of cabbages that form the basis of diets. They also learn over a two-year course how to keep chickens and pigs and build with locally-available materials.

Jerry Anderson, deputy principal, explains how the school began its life in August 2003 with no outside financial assistance. "We started with ten students and worked together on small business activities to raise money to repair the buildings and buy tools," he says. "We harvested crops and made paddles for canoes and coconut scrapers, which we sold locally." They made SBD$1,500 (approx. AUD$270) from this enterprise, which was enough to expand the centre to accommodate another 30 students for the next intake. Student ages range from 17 to 27, and there is a near-equal gender mix.

Food processing and other courses added

In its second year, the Community Based Training Centre's resourcefulness and initiative convinced some non-governmental organizations to fund expansion projects to include new training courses in food processing and sewing machine repair and materials for new buildings. The centre is also beginning to produce enough revenue from its farm and furniture-making projects to pay staff a modest salary when possible. The school fees are SBD$200 per student with help given to those who find it hard to meet the full payment. In contrast, the Weather Coast's only secondary school charges SBD$1,200 a year and this is rising. Consequently, many children receive no formal education beyond primary level.

The experience of Tanasio Kechekado, a second year student at the training centre, is typical of a Weather Coast youth. He says prior to starting the course he had no practical skills or employment prospects, having left school in primary form six. He spent his days gardening, helping his sister and sitting with other youths. He says he is very happy to have been given the opportunity to learn agriculture and building skills. His hope for the future is to run his own furniture-making business and a farm.

Many students say the full programme, working 12 hours a day on lessons and farm duties, is instilling discipline and a strong sense of responsibility for their communities that had been missing. Jerry says he has witnessed a big change in their outlook. He says: "I can see positive results in the students who will graduate this November. A lot of the boys were ex-militants, involved with Harold Keke. When they started the course they were aggressive and didn't communicate well. We tried to sit down and talk with them about how they could change their lives for the better. Now they have peaceful attitudes and meaningful work. We know we can leave them on the farm and they will continue to work hard, before, we had to watch over them all the time."

Some students will be invited back as teachers, others will be able to use their qualification to go on to higher education if they have the funds. It is hoped that those who cannot continue their education will use their skills to develop their villages.

The Turusuala school is receiving support from the Kastom Gaden Association as part of its Sustainable Livelihoods in Isolated Rural Areas Programme (SLIRAP). The scheme, funded by AusAID, is focused on improving the food security of vulnerable parts of the Solomon Islands, including the Weather Coast and areas of Malaita and Makira.

Climate change causing erosion, food shortages

School principal Celestine Aloatu says food shortages on the Weather Coast are getting worse due to a number of factors. "The rainy season now lasts nine months of the year and most people believe it's raining more than in the past," he says. This means farming, which mostly has to be on sloping land, is being affected by erosion that is stripping the nutrients from the soil.

Over the decades, there has also been a transition in the types of root crops people are planting, which is leaving them more susceptible to climate problems. Celestine explains that, in the past, people mainly planted yam and taro, which is harvested at different times of the year and can be stored for the rainy season. Now people are more focused on introduced root crops, like sweet potato, pana and cassava. He says: "People like these crops because they require less labour as they grow in secondary forests and can be harvested after three months. But people are not spending enough time improving the soil. And sweet potato doesn't withstand the rainy season."

"People are experiencing food shortages year after year," adds Celestine. "The weather is making life harder. There is a lot of malnutrition. Coconut is the only food that withstands any weather, it's common practice to survive on coconuts and bananas. People understand about nutrition but the situation gets out of hand and hunger leads to bad management. Many people here are resigned to their fate. They don't have a crusading attitude. We are trying to educate people about sustainable farming by encouraging them to concentrate on crops that give the best harvest."

Another prong of the Sustainable Livelihoods in Isolated Rural Areas Programme is to train communities in how to make added-value products from home-grown produce to boost their virtually non-existent incomes. Food-processing workshops have been held in target regions, with Avuavu being the first, in March 2005, to receive training from Kastom Gaden's consultant food scientist Richard Beyer, who is based in Fiji.

Banana chip project boosts incomes

The programme is currently focusing on producing banana chips, as banana trees fare well under heavy rainfalls and processing is cheap and simple. There are now around 30 members of the food-processing groups in Avuavu ward, mainly women, who meet weekly to make the chips together in their villages. The Isolated Rural Areas Programme supports the groups by providing cooking and packaging equipment. The groups can buy oil, salt and flavourings from the training centre. To become a member, they each have to plant 100 banana trees to ensure the scheme is sustainable.

Interviews with women who have been processing banana chips for some months reveal they have been able to boost their incomes significantly since the groups started. Some women previously received virtually no income. Others said they were only able to make small profits of around SBD$10 a week from selling produce such as bananas, sweet potato, pineapples and cabbage and fish at the local market. Now they also sell packets of banana chips that can make from SBD$30 to SBD$50 in one day. The women sell these packets at Avuavu market and at the secondary school, which has become their biggest customer base. They also sell to local villages.

The women say they keep the additional income, rather than give it to their husbands, and use it to pay for household items such as kerosene, soap and salt, which were difficult to afford before they joined the groups.

Rose Sai, a food processing member from St Dominic's Community, said for the first time in her life she has been able to make SBD$50 in one day by selling banana chips. She makes around 25 packets and sells every one for SBD$2 per packet at market every Wednesday and Friday. She said: "Making banana chips is very easy work. It takes less time than making cassava pudding and you can sell more packets. It's a very helpful way of earning regular money because it doesn't depend on the seasons." She has ambitions to set up a small shop selling household items in her village with the money she is making from the banana chips. Others said they wanted to save towards paying for school fees.

Members say the scheme also gives them more food security during the nine-month rainy season, as they are able to buy in supplies of rice and flour to supplement their diets when subsistence gardens are flooded. It also brings money into an area which is seriously deprived of economic opportunities.

Selling the products in Honiara

The scheme has great potential for expansion if the products can be regularly shipped to Honiara. For a trade show in the capital, in July 2005, the groups were given a one-off opportunity to dispatch a thousand packets of banana chips by a Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands helicopter. This proved to be their most profitable venture yet, with most of the women making over SBD$100 each.

The groups have also begun training to produce jams, marmalades and chutneys that have a longer shelf life and are more portable. Kastom Gaden has begun to sell small loads whenever they can be sent via motor boat during visits. They hope this will become a weekly feature of its marketing service, Farmer Fresh, which provides a vegetable box delivery scheme for residents in Honiara.

Celestine hopes the scheme will become a small income generator for families across the Weather Coast. The programme will be expanded to neighbouring wards, Moli and Talise in the near future. "My vision is that each community will manage their own food processing project through our training and support. One day soon I hope we will have an agreement with retailers in Honiara to take produce from the Weather Coast."

Looking to the future

The weather may not change for the better, but such a development could mean these communities need no longer be completely at the mercy of the elements. It may also go some way towards addressing the inequity that has been and could potentially again be the catalyst for conflict. Celestine pointed out, however, that transport is the hardest problem to solve. This will take some serious investment in road or shipping infrastructure and a real acknowledgement by the Solomon Islands government and international aid agencies of the needs of the people of the Weather Coast.

Acknowledgements
This article was first published in the Pacific Ecologist, a journal of the Pacific Institute of Resource Management. It is reprinted with permission from the author and from Kay Weir, the editor of the Pacific Ecologist.

Further information
Louise Hunt, 73a Devonshire Road, Forest Hill, London SE23 3LX, United Kingdom. Email: louise.hunt@gmail.com.

On the Web
The Tiempo Climate Cyberlibrary presents a listing of theme sites on Small Island States.

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