ELEANOR
HALL: Oil is a key source of income for East Timor.
But increasingly it is a change in farming practices that is creating a new breed of entrepreneurs.
And an Australian aid program has had a key role in this, as Skye Manson reports
(Sound of a truck)
SKYE MANSON: In East Timor, 80 percent of the population is employed in agriculture but most of the country's money still comes from oil.
ILLIDIO MEDONCA: My name is Illidio...
SKYE MANSON: This farmer Illidio Medonca has chickens and pigs and grows maize on a small plot of land near his house.
But his main job is selling seeds, from his crop and others grown in the community, to the Timorese Government.
To do that Illidio Medonca has to travel on a bus, which takes three hours to drive just 34 kilometres to the nearest seed depot.
The ride costs him $5 each way - almost all of his daily wage.
ILLIDIO MEDONCA: In the future, it’s more about two hours...
SKYE MANSON: Mr Medonca is the secretary of the national association of commercial seed producers in East Timor.
The association started with the help of the Australian Government's Seeds of Life program.
Fifteen years ago it began giving farmers seeds for better crop varieties to help them overcome food shortages.
Australian Team Leader John Dalton says the scheme has gone so well, that farmers now have excess seeds to sell for profit.
JOHN DALTON: The government had been importing about 200 tons of maize and corn and rice seed each year. We’ve now developed a commercial seed industry and about 60 commercial seed producers now satisfy that demand.
So the millions that used to go out of the country to Indonesia or Vietnam now stay in the country and those CSP, commercial seed producers, are probably the first genuine entrepreneurs in agriculture, and that’s the way the country has to move.
SKYE MANSON: The Seeds of Life program is helping East Timorese earn enough money to educate their children.
Some have even started savings and loan schemes.
JOHN DALTON: And they’re now making, you know, $10,000, $15,000 a year from commercial seed production. We’re helping them, most of them have started savings and loans associations and they’re now investing, we’re seeing that money being turned over in other productive activities.
ELEANOR HALL: That’s John Dalton, the Australian team leader for the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research's Seeds of Life program. Skye Manson reporting.
But increasingly it is a change in farming practices that is creating a new breed of entrepreneurs.
And an Australian aid program has had a key role in this, as Skye Manson reports
(Sound of a truck)
SKYE MANSON: In East Timor, 80 percent of the population is employed in agriculture but most of the country's money still comes from oil.
ILLIDIO MEDONCA: My name is Illidio...
SKYE MANSON: This farmer Illidio Medonca has chickens and pigs and grows maize on a small plot of land near his house.
But his main job is selling seeds, from his crop and others grown in the community, to the Timorese Government.
To do that Illidio Medonca has to travel on a bus, which takes three hours to drive just 34 kilometres to the nearest seed depot.
The ride costs him $5 each way - almost all of his daily wage.
ILLIDIO MEDONCA: In the future, it’s more about two hours...
SKYE MANSON: Mr Medonca is the secretary of the national association of commercial seed producers in East Timor.
The association started with the help of the Australian Government's Seeds of Life program.
Fifteen years ago it began giving farmers seeds for better crop varieties to help them overcome food shortages.
Australian Team Leader John Dalton says the scheme has gone so well, that farmers now have excess seeds to sell for profit.
JOHN DALTON: The government had been importing about 200 tons of maize and corn and rice seed each year. We’ve now developed a commercial seed industry and about 60 commercial seed producers now satisfy that demand.
So the millions that used to go out of the country to Indonesia or Vietnam now stay in the country and those CSP, commercial seed producers, are probably the first genuine entrepreneurs in agriculture, and that’s the way the country has to move.
SKYE MANSON: The Seeds of Life program is helping East Timorese earn enough money to educate their children.
Some have even started savings and loan schemes.
JOHN DALTON: And they’re now making, you know, $10,000, $15,000 a year from commercial seed production. We’re helping them, most of them have started savings and loans associations and they’re now investing, we’re seeing that money being turned over in other productive activities.
ELEANOR HALL: That’s John Dalton, the Australian team leader for the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research's Seeds of Life program. Skye Manson reporting.
Skye
Manson reported this story on Monday, June 8, 2015 –
ABC NEWS
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