While
oil has been the mainstay of East Timor's economy in the past, it is farming
that is transforming rural areas and creating a new breed of entrepreneurs.
Businessmen
and women are learning to grow and barter seeds from crops like corn, thanks to
the help of an Australian Government aid program.
John
Dalton is the Australian team leader for the Australian Centre for
International Agricultural Research's (ACIAR) Seeds of Life program, which has
been running since 2000.
For
three or four months of each year many families experience the "hungry
season" where, as John Dalton said, people literally do not have enough to
eat.
"When
ACIAR first went into Timor one of things they noted was that the varieties of
seed crops were very old varieties and so it went about importing better
varieties of rice, maize, sweet potato, cassava and peanuts," he said.
Prior
to the intervention up to 40 per cent of stored maize was lost each year to
pests, like weevils and rats.
But
Mr Dalton said a simple change in varieties meant these losses were being
eliminated.
"We
have researched them right across the country in a range of situations,"
he said.
"Of
the 12 released varieties they're averaging a 70 - 80 per cent lift in
yield."
Survey
results conducted by ACIAR show farmers are now starting to take the fortune of
agriculture into their own hands.
"Our
final phase, which ends in another 12 months, is to establish a seed system so
that those varieties are available to the 130,000 East Timorese farmers."
Developing
agricultural entrepreneurs
This
year the Seeds of Life program is working to establish a sustainable national
seed system.
"Seed
supplies are grown and organised at a community level, through community seed
producer groups," Mr Dalton said.
"They
produce enough seed for themselves and store it for the next cropping and
enough to distribute, barter or sell to their neighbours.
There
are three of these groups per village and 1300 across the country.
"We
are working closely with the municipal staff of the Ministry of Agriculture to
help them set up municipal seed systems so that each municipality knows how
much seed it needs."
This
program has been so successful that the country's reliance on imports of maize,
corn and rice seed have almost ceased due to the creation of what Mr Dalton
calls East Timor's first real agricultural entrepreneurs.
"We
have now developed a commercial seed industry and about 60 producers now
satisfy that demand" he said.
"The
millions of dollars that used to go out of the country to Indonesia or Vietnam
now stay in the country and those commercial seed producers are probably the
first genuine entrepreneurs in agriculture.
"That
is the way the country has to move."
Seeds
of Life promotes social changes
What
started out as a program to help farmers grow crops has resulted in large scale
social change in many communities across the rugged terrain of East Timor.
Mr
Dalton said East Timor needed to start making money from industries other than
oil.
He
said farmers were starting to take the economy in a different direction.
"There
is a tendency for agriculture just to be seen as a subsistence lifestyle,"
Mr Dalton said.
"There
is a huge need for the country to move forward on integrated rural development,
so that it starts to generate wealth from something other than its oil
resources.
"The
name of the game is empowerment; to empower people to understand how they can
continue to manage change.
"You
have to hasten to slowly and there is a lot of mentoring and hand holding while
people are training while largely on the job."
Seeds
of Life is a program run within the Ministry of Education in East Timor.
The
program is funded collaboratively by the Australian and the Timor Leste
governments.
The
official aim is to establish a national seed system, including identifying
improved varieties of maize, rice, sweet potato, peanut and cassava.
The
program is currently in transition to the Ministry of Agriculture in East Timor
and will be closing in June of 2016.
It
is understood DAFF and ACIAR are working on a follow-up project which would be
aimed at more integrated rural development, so that village level activities
could be coordinated.
ABC Rural - Skye Manson
Cleaning
the peanut crop in East Timor
Members
of Illimanu Anan community seed production group cleaning the peanut (Utamua)
after harvesting
ACIAR
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