(Radio Australia) Vanuatu's Ministry for Agriculture is launching the country's first rice project in a bid to reduce the dependency on imported grains, encouraging local farmers to move away from traditional root crops and plant rice instead. However, a group representing ni-Vanuatu farmers says it's unlikely locally grown rice will be able to compete with imports.Presenter Helene Hofman Speakers: Director General of the Ministry for Agriculture Jeffrey Wilfred, Farm Support Association Senior staff member Peter Kaoh.
HOFMAN: Vanuatu's Ministry for Agriculture says it's concerned that the population is becoming over-reliant on rice from overseas. According to the Statistics Office in Port Vila, the average household in Vanuatu now spends over 15% of its food budget on imported rice and just 6% on locally-grown food crops. The figures have prompted fears that rising prices will lead to serious food shortages in future. The Ministry says it's now time for small hold farmers to consider growing rice and avoid the additional costs associated with importing rice from countries like China and Australia. Based on two Chinese-funded rice growing trials on the islands of Tanna and Santo, the Ministry is recommending two varieties of dry land rice most suited to the conditions in Vanuatu. The Director-General of the Ministry for Agriculture, Jeffrey Wilfred, says rice could provide a solution for semi-commercial farmers struggling to cope with the falling prices of crops like copra.
WILFRED: We already have a market in Vanuatu. In 1989 we imported over 4,000 tonnes. Ten years later that has increased to 10,000 tonnes. So, one investor when this rice project was launched, he costed us at about 40 vatu per kilo to mill it. So, one kilo of rice now in Vanuatu is about 200 vatu so if 40 vatu is charged by a miller in Vanuatu, the farmer might sell that at 110 vatu per kilo, which is much lower than what is being sold now in the market in Vanuatu.
HOFMAN: Vanuatu is not the only country to have become increasingly dependent on imported rice. A recent report on food security from the World Institute for Development Economics Research estimates that the Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga are now 100 per cent dependent on imports for their stable foods of rice and wheat. Papau New Guinea and Solomon Islands are over 90 per cent dependent on imported cereal. Vanuatu's Minister for Agriculture says its latest rice project could provide a long-term solution. However Peter Kaoh, a senior staff member of the country's Farm Support Association, an NGO that represents about 100 small holders, has reservations about the project.KAOH: To be honest, growing rice in Vanuatu is not a new thing to us. We've started it and we couldn't go along with it due to some problems. The first problem we have here is each year we have cyclones. And secondly our farmers are used to growing root crops, which means they just go along and plant the cuttings of suckers or tubers and then come back some time later and remove the weeds. But for rice, the thing is that you sow the seeds and you have to weed them before the weeds smother the crops, and third problem is processing rice locally might cost more than what we can purchase from Australia.
HOFMAN: Seeds have already been distributed to farmers around the country and they have been encouraged to contact specially-trained agricultural officers for guidance. The Ministry for Agriculture says it doesn't expect the project to be immediately successful, but hopes to adapt and expand it over the coming years. Mr Kaoh says many local farmers are willing to give the project a try.KAOH: They seem to be asking for more, the farmers. But the thing is, they haven't got as far as processing the rice to see what are the real costs and the machines available to sow. So, yeah I would say the interest is high but that does not tell me the rice is promising.
