Vanuatu’s Agriculture Ministry through the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is leading the food cluster to feed the provincial participants attending the National Arts Festival on Malekula.
The DARD office on Malekula is responsible for ensuring that the supply of root crops and vegetables from farmers are fairly distributed to all the participating provinces.
DARD has negotiated with farmers on Malekula to contribute by providing root crops and vegetables and in return funds were given to farmers.
Most farmers that supplied local food are from South East, Unua three and five and North West, South West Bay, Lawa and Wintua.
“The vegetables were purchased in bundles, root crops like yam in groups and other root crops like taro and banana, were not paid for.
“Most of the food were not paid for, farmers donated the food as part of their contribution towards the NAF.
“Farmers gave from their hearts to help feed the participants,” said Roger Batick, DARD officer on Malakeula, who is part of the National Arts Festival’s food coordinating centre.
“We control and manage the root crops and vegetables that comes into the food centre and the distribution of food to each province.
DARD has established a good working relationship with farmers and is happy to see that the farmers are very supportive in providing some root crops for free.
“There are more than 1,000 kilograms of Fiji taro, over 500 kilograms of island taro, more than 1,000 kilograms of yam and over 500 kilograms of banana plus a lot of vegetables.
“I believe that these foods will be enough to feed the participants until the end of the NAF,” said Mr Batick.
Photo supplied Caption: Farmers donating bananas to the food cluster team