Home gardening initiative enhanced
THE ‘Home Gardening Initiative’ has been a tremendous success and will be enhanced as the distribution network will be expanded soon. This was announced by the Minister for Agriculture Dr Mahendra Reddy who launched the additional support that the Ministry’s Home Gardening Initiative will receive to ensure expansion of the programme. Speaking during a press conference at the Ministry’s headquarters this week, Minister Reddy said the ministry has had a record level of uptakes through the ‘Home Gardening’ initiative where more than 52,000 packages of seeds have been distributed in the last 12 months.
“It has been an ongoing activity for the Ministry, with tremendous level of success and this activity will continue in the future too,” he said.
“I wish to thank each and every one of you who participated in this programme and now has a home garden to complement your food requirements.”
“To complement our ongoing drive, I am happy to announce that the Ministry will be running an expanded network of seed package distribution across Viti Levu keeping in mind the need for all of us to observe the protocols laid out by the Ministry of Health as part of our COVID 19 response.”
“We recognise that twwhe safest thing for individuals to do is to stay home, however, there are needs that each households will need to fulfil like getting food and medicine which is critical to a family’s wellbeing,” Minister Reddy elaborated.
The Minister explained that the Ministry in partnership with the Fiji Police Force’s ‘Community Policing’ will be distributing seeds at various communities with 16 police
posts/stations, four agriculture stations and a cooperative office to be utilised for the seed distribution.
Acknowledging the support of the Fiji Police and its chief operations officer ACP Abdul Khan, the Minister said the move to take the seeds to the people will minimise movement especially in the containment zones, minimising risks of spreading the disease and at the same time allow police to conduct their community and house to house visitations. The Minister stressed that strict COVID-19 protocols will be adhered to during the distribution of the seed packages.
“Your safety, our safety and the safety of our fellow Fijians cannot be compromised and we will be needing your understating in this regards,” the Minister adds.
Minister Reddy also distributed seeds at the Veidogo settlement in Vatuwaqa with officers from the Vatuwaqa Community Police Post.