Eating green and clean from home gardens during Fiji’s second COVID-19 wave

Above: Mili Saini attends to her vegetable garden, which has been her main source of food during Fiji’s second wave of COVID-19. Photo: PCDF

The economic and social disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has hurt lives and livelihoods across the Pacific, and globally.  

In Fiji, border closures, trade restrictions and confinement measures have prevented farmers and people from accessing markets, disrupting food supply chains and reducing access to healthy, safe and diverse diets.

The Australian Humanitarian Partnership, through its local partners, has been responding globally to the COVID-19 pandemic, incorporating COVID-19 preparation efforts into response programs to support food security and livelihoods in vulnerable communities.

Across the Pacific and Timor-Leste, Disaster READY country programs have engaged in preparedness work, supporting the networks and community-based disaster risk management efforts that have mobilised behind COVID-19 response efforts.

In Fiji, the people of Nabulini, Wainibuka, in Tailevu, who rely on selling produce for their livelihood, particularly banana and taro, were one of the vulnerable communities that suffered from the first COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, when the world came to a standstill. During the second wave in Fiji in 2021, they were better resourced thanks to food security support.

With assistance from Partners for Community Development Fiji (PCDF) under the AHP COVID-19 response, 62 households in the village were assisted with agricultural kits and vegetable seeds for food security and livelihoods, just a day before the lockdown began after the second wave of cases hit Fiji.

The assistance was timely, as throughout the five months of confinement measures the community became food and nutrition secure as they were able to source fresh vegetables from their gardens.

Village head Waisake Kaloulia said no one was left behind as each household engaged in vegetable farming.

“We were able to harvest our vegetables within a short period of time, so we did not lack food as we had abundance of supplies from our individual gardens,” he said.

For 57-year-old Mili Saini, assistance from AHP helped in rebuilding her life after leaving her Nadi home. With COVID-19 affecting her flower business and after experiencing ill health, she was forced to return to the village.

“It’s not easy restarting your life from nothing. I started out with my home gardening and through the vegetable seeds that I was given, I was able to provide for me and my younger brother,” Mili said.

“Until today, my garden has been my main source of food as I familiarise myself and adjust slowly to village life. Thank you PCDF and AHP for your support.”

Nabulini is one of seven communities in Tailevu assisted under the response.

“Apart from seed distribution, we also assisted [communities] in terms of nurseries and demonstration plots incorporated with smart agriculture and financial literacy training,” PCDF Project Officer Nemani Susu said.

Nemani extended his thanks to the Tailevu Provincial Office, in particular their Senior Agriculture Officer, who coordinated delivery of the COVID-19 response activities to target communities in Wainibuka during the confinement period, when project staff were unable to travel to the area.