Penama Provincial Agriculture Office is currently working in partnership with Save the Children’s Penama office to distribute seeds to the four area councils on Ambae in Vanuatu.
This is under a Food Security and Livelihood (FSL) programme and is part of a recovery programme to assist the evacuees that have returned from Maewo to re- settle and start their normal lives after the eruption of Lobenben volcano.
Save the Children officer based on Ambae, Amos Talu said “the aim of the Food Security and Livelihood Programme is to ensure the people have nutritious food to eat and to maintain food security and improve their livelihood”.
Talu said the financial support comes from Save the Children and the technical support comes from Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) officers on Ambae. “The main purpose of this partnership is for the DARD officers on the ground to continue to sustain the Food Security and Livelihood recovery programme through technical advice and support”.
During distribution of seeds, the Assistant Agriculture Office (AAO) for West Ambae, George Tari, conducted awareness on the process of planting seeds until transplanting of seedlings onto the field. Technical advice was delivered by Penama Extension Officers whilst data collection was done by Save the Children.
Talu said packets of seeds were distributed including construction of multiplication plots in the four area councils with the plot size of 50m x 50m as advised by DARD Technical Officers on Penama.
“A total of 8,000 packets of seeds were distributed last week to 500 households in each area council, a total of 2,000 households in North, South, East and West of Ambae, with a portion of four different seed packets per household,” he said.
The FSL recovery programme on Ambae is an ongoing disaster response from the ‘Cash for Work’ Programme on Maewo implemented by Save the Children.