backyard garden in urban areas

This project aims to reduce the vulnerability of our local community to natural disasters and pandemic and assist for the food security and income generation.

Our local community is highly exposed to climate change and natural disasters and by assisting them to secure some food in their gardens or allocate some land for those without land around their house it will ensure that they can at least access some fresh food and reduce their vulnerability. It will also contribute to assist them generate some income by linking them to the surrounding restaurants and hotels by selling their over production. It will create a local economy that can benefit the local community and also encourage people to eat local healthy product. Chefs will be also approached to develop recipes to use more local products.

This project can then be scalable to other main cities in Vanuatu and the Pacific.

The population of Port Vila the capital of the archipelago of Vanuatu in the South West Pacific represents approx. 60,000 people and who are highly vulnerable to all major natural disasters. By encouraging backyard gardens and compost at the households level it will contribute to mitigate the impact of those hazards.

The project aims to distribute appropriated seeds to the households and develop training materials to show how and when to plant. The harvested plants will be used for the food security with production of healthy nutritious food and the extra plants will be sold at the neighboring hotels, restaurants and market to encourage people eating more local products and supporting the local community.

Vanuatu is often victim of natural disasters and now the pandemic and is too dependent of imported food that are expensive and for most of them are not as healthy as the local food.

The project can start now with the planting season starting now in the South West Pacific.

The solution is:

-to work with the Etas and Second Lagoon areas housesholds (approx. 5,000 people)

-to distribute appropriated seeds and planting materials for the households in Port Vila

- to make awareness with those households on how, what and when to plant and train on composting

- link the households with extra harvest with surrounding hotels, restaurants and markets

- involve local chefs in developing recipes and using local healthy products for the tourism industry and the local community

- to mitigate the impact of natural disasters and pandemic for the local urban communities and scale up the solution to other cities in the archipelago.

The solution is for all households living in the capital of the archipelago of Vanuatu Port Vila where more than 60,000 people live in sometimes very basic conditions. Those people have for some employment but when a disaster or pandemic strike they are often left without job and no resources to cope with the impacts of such situation.

By assisting them to plant a backyard garden according to the space available surrounding their house we can contribute to give them access to some food to cover their dietary needs. We will determine with them the vegetables or root crops they will be interested in planting and assist them to grow them. For those producing more that what they can consume we will link them with the local business community (restaurants, hotels, markets and agro-processing facilities) to also generate some income to improve their livelihoods.

This project could therefore also contribute to reduce social violence with decrease of thieves for food access if the food is available for more people during disasters period.

By assisting the local community to mitigate their vulnerability to natural disasters and pandemics it will assist them to get prepare to such events. This project will also contribute to make some households more resilient by producing more healthy nutritious local products.

The innovative approach for this project is to propose some adapted activities at the households level to reduce their vulnerability to disasters and pandemics and increase their resilience.

Vanuatu does not have as other developed countries support mechanisms for the local community in case of a disaster. It relies on a lot of aid assistance that takes weeks to month to put in place.

By assisting the households this project will give them some food resources awaiting for further assistance.

We will use adapted seeds for climate change and productivity and also organic seeds when possible.

We will train people on the best agricultural practices and provide them appropriate seeds for the vegetables and root crops adapted to our environment and diet.

We started a backyard gardens initiative with 10 households in the peri urban area of Tagabe of the capitale of Port Vila and the results are quite encouraging with people taking actively part of the project and being pleased to eat their own vegetables and saving on food purchases.

By assisting the households to produce some local food we will reduce the impact of a pandemics or natural disasters on them. It will contribute to their resilience and delay the negative impacts of such event. It will also reduce the financial pressure on those households to access essential needs such as food.

At the moment only 20 people. With this project we expect to reach 5,000 people and then in 5 years time we can extend the project to other peri urban areas of Port Vila and the city of Port Vila.

In the next year we expect to reach 5,000 people ie 1,000 households with access to food from their backyard gardens and to create a local economy with also the sales of the extra production to the neighboring restaurants, hotels and markets.

In five years we expect to reach approx. 25,000 people ie 40% of the capital population using backyard gardens and composting for food security.

There is no barrier except the financial barrier to purchase the seeds, print the brochures and purchase basic planting materials.

It is the culture of Vanuatu to work their gardens in the rural areas. Ni-Vanuatu people are used to work their land and have a good knowledge of the planting for the traditional varieties, which are also nutritious and healthy.

We are looking to receive the essential financial support with this project to be able to implement it properly.

Our full team represent 12 full time people with two international volunteers.

We work mainly on the empowerment of the local small scale producers and communities from the rural areas to develop products and access market.

We started this year to backyard gardens in the peri urban area on Tagabe to to also assist the households living in a peri urban area of Port Vila.

We are working closely with the Department of Agriculture from the Government of Vanuatu.

We will make awareness to the households of the areas of Etas and the second lagoon (approx. 1,000 households) on the food security.

We will distribute adapted seeds and planting materials to the households and provide training with our staff.

We will follow the households on the evolution of the planting of their gardens.

We will develop an access to the market with the local restaurants, hotels and market for the extra production of some households.

We will develop some recipes with local chefs for the use of the local vegetables and root crops to encourage their use.

We will look for funding (grants) to purchase the needed equipment to scale up the project to two peri urban areas of Port Vila.

We expect in the future to organise collect of seeds to generate more seeds to extend the project and generate income with the sales of some production to the local businesses.

We are applying to SOLVE to seek some financial support to implement our backyard gardens project.

We are looking to financial partners to assist us raise some funds to implement our project and reach more households.

We would like to partner also with organizations that have experience in permaculture and sustainable agriculture to assist our communities to be more resilient to pandemics and natural disasters.