Transcript
INIA SERUIRATU: In terms of building resilience in our farmers, we are looking at the traditional farming systems and of course traditional crops as well. Two, is look at aggressive research given the changing weather patterns and what we're experiencing right now. Particularly interesting is the traditional crops our people use during post-disaster. But unfortunately, it's like I said, most of the farmers have got ridden of these crops because of the new demand-driven commodities that we have.
INDIRA STEWART: For farmers in Fiji, after what happened with Winston, did they learn quite a few lessons in terms of the value of going back to traditional farming and also growing traditional crops?
IS: Oh yes definitely. But unfortunately it's lessons learned the hard way. Because agriculture continues to promote food security - that's the basic. But again, it's a matter of choice. Most of our farmers have totally neglected the traditional crops which our grandfathers used to have. And these are the ones that helped them post-disaster, in terms of their food security. So it's a matter of the farmers getting access to these again and of course, start planting these. They have learned. They have definitely learned a lot.
INDIRA: Winston damaged a huge amount of farmers' crops, in future do you hope that Fiji will be better prepared for a natural disaster of that magnitude?
IS: Definitely. We are always preparing for the next one. We've just completed a round of consultations on lessons learned. This is done at the community level and then the government administration level, the agencies, the clusters and just last week, from Monday to Wednesday we've concluded the national debriefs on lessons learned. And of course, for Fiji, it's about proactiveness, learning from the lessons of the past to help us prepare for the future. Three main lessons learned is the way we live, because these are going to be the norm for the future, the way we do development and of course, the way we do corporation as well. So, we want to be better prepared, be proactive, so that the effects will be minimal come the next one.
