COVID-19 - A SILVER LINING FOR NAVALA FARMER
Imagine resigning from your work, packing up your family·s belongings and off you go to start a completely new life. 7here is no roof over your head to protect you from the elements the very first night of your Mourney e[cept for a tarpaulin.
Such is the story of 1avala farmer, Apolosi Sokia, , following a discussion with his wife after feeling the effects of COVID-19 via a reduction in working hours.
Mr. Sokia was a security officer of a maMor supermarket chain, who worked for two years in its Ba location when the global pandemic hit )iMi.
Recounting his story in i-taukei, Mr. Sokia e[plained how he and his colleagues were informed by the management that they would be working on reduced hours. +e knew the reduced hours meant reduced wages. A discussion with his wife resulted in the decision to leave his Mob and move to his village of 1avala, Ba to farm.
7he day he resigned, was the same day he and his young family had packed all their belongings and left for the village.
-ust before reaching 1avala Village, his wife stopped them and told them to get off at the land earmarked to start off his farm, instead of going on to the village, about five kilometres away. A small space was cleared, a tarpaulin spread out and that was where they spent the first night of their new life, under the stars.
7he ne[t day, Apolosi focused on two main tasks erecting his
makeshift home made from the same tarpaulin as well as roofing iron sheets borrowed from the village, and beginning the hard work of clearing his land for planting.
In the last three months, he has planted 1 mounds of kumala, 9 mounds of yam 3hilippine variety ,
mounds of kawai, mounds of traditional yams, suckers of banana and , mounds of cassava. +e spent 1 to hire bullocks to plough part of his field. Most of the farming he did solely with help from his fellow villagers.
7oday, Apolosi·s achievement is the talk of his community with regular visits by members of his village.
/iterally re-setting the button
of his life, Apolosi had to stare in the face of insurmountable odds. One being inaccessibility to basic amenities like water, whereby he has to walk kms to fetch it for his family and farm needs. 7here is also no electricity and he needs farm tools so he can e[pand his farm, which covers about five acres of mataqali land.
Apolosi is super e[cited about watching the growth of his crops and now reali]es that as a farmer, setting goals is e[tremely important.
7he Ministry of Agriculture assisted Apolosi with farm support seeds and has organi]ed a tractor to work on his farm for a few hours at the subsidi]ed rate of per hour. At the same time, Apolosi has
applied for the new program of ¶/and Clearing· recently announced by the Minister for Agriculture, :aterways and (nvironment, +on. Dr. Mahendra Reddy for this new financial year of 1- .
Apolosi thanked the Ministry through its Agriculture 7echnical Officer, Ba for visiting him on his farm, something he had never dreamt would happen. -ust like it had never occurred to him that he would one day take up full-time farming in order to not only look after his family but to ensure that his children would have a better future.
+e said it was only through faith in *od that has enabled him to see the fruits of his labour.