What could be more organic than bannan mille?
This year’s theme for the World Food Day is Family Farming: “Feeding the world, caring for the earth”. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) chose this year’s theme with the hope of raising the profile of family and small holder farmers and their key role in food security and natural resource management. 2014 has thus been named the International Year of Family Farming by the UN General Assembly.
In June this year, Nature Seychelles launched the second edition of the book ‘Grow and Eat Your Own Food Seychelles’ to try and encourage Seychellois to grow, at subsistence level, more of the foods they consume. The second edition of the book is a more detailed version of the earlier one with more information on vegetables, fruits, herbs and medicinal plants as well as recipes on preparing various dishes, juices and teas.
On Monday the 13th of October, the Seychelles Food Week was launched in tandem with this year’s theme of World Food Day which is to be marked on Thursday 16th of October. Nature Seychelles was invited to attend a Market Study Presentation on the 14th of October by the Competitive Local Innovations for Small Scale Agriculture (CLISSA) Project at the NIE auditorium in Mont Fleuri.
Guy Morel of CLISSA, which was launched a year ago, delivered the presentation which detailed pertinent findings on the agricultural and fisheries sectors in Seychelles and the challenges small scale farmers face. With many food products being imported into the country, it is not hard to see how the local agricultural sector faces tough competition in the local market.
Food imports also equals less fresh, organic and therefore healthy foods available in the market. Obesity and healthy living is a trending subject at the moment in Seychelles. Miss Seychelles 2014, Camila Estico, has further raised the importance of the topic through her ‘Back to Basics’ project which aims to encourage Seychellois to have healthier lifestyles.
In her recent MoU signing with Jean-Paul Geffroy, a local farmer in Anse Royale, the two parties agreed on a partnership in which families participating in the ‘Back to Basics’ project will be provided with vegetables from Geffroy’s farm each week for the duration of the project. This highlighted the link between eating local organic food and obesity, vis-a-vis healthy living.
What’s more, as with FAO’s objective to correlate small holder and family farming to natural resource conservation, Geffroy’s Farm is an exemplary farm achieving this through his eco-friendly farming methods. In his presentation, Mr Morel stated that “Seychelles needs more farmers like Jean-Paul” who are using innovative farming methods. “He is the only farmer using steam to clear pathogens from the soil,” he pointed out.
The book ‘Grow and Eat your Own Food Seychelles’ also has tips on how Seychellois can create and care for their organic edible landscapes. It is through this book that Jean-Paul connected with Dr Shah, Nature Seychelles CEO. As an eco-friendly farmer, Jean-Paul has been valuable in sharing some best practices with Nature Seychelles for the organisation’s Heritage (organic) Garden. The Heritage Garden is a demonstration organic farm with traditional food crops, fruits and medicinal plants that have been rapidly disappearing from farming communities and local cuisine, and which Nature Seychelles hopes to preserve. As Mr Morel so aptly pointed out in his presentation “What could be more organic than bannan mille? he asked. ”Once planted, it grows and then takes care of itself.”
Photos: 1) L-R Dr Shah, Jean-Paul and Ms Estico watching a demonstration of how the soil steamer works at the MoU signing event between Geffroy's farm and Miss Seychelles 2) Guy Morel presenting CLISSA's findings on Seychelles' agriculture and fisheries sector at the NIE auditorium on Tuesday afternoon 3) Jean-Paul uses steam rather than chemical pesticides on his farm to control pathogens in the soil 4) Using Jean-Paul Geffroy's pest control idea at Nature Seychelles' Heritage Garden - recycling waste plastic layered with grease as insect traps
