Food program to help vulnerable Fijians

A FOUR-YEAR project implemented by FRIEND Fiji in collaboration with the Global Seafood Project in Barbados is expected to improve livelihoods for vulnerable Fijians.

Global Seafood project member Dr Mahuvanti Murphy said the project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research in the United Kingdom.

“The program looks at improving human nutrition and planetary health and looks at that relationship and we are also considering climate change and environmental factors as well,” she said.

“The theme is very broad and focuses on public health, food security, agriculture, within economics.

“It’s quite broad but the idea is really to be able to look into all these factors that can impact both human health as well as environmental issues that are occurring and how we can produce food in a way that is sustainable.

“The project has many players such as the University of the South Pacific, FRIEND and we have the Western Philippines

University, the University of Cambridge, the University of Exeter, the University of West Indies, Miguel University and James Harding Institute.

“We have three sites where this project is being implemented and these are in the Caribbean, the South Pacific, particularly Fiji, and the Philippines.

“The idea is to look from ridge to reef and look at food production not just in terms of its produce or livestock, but also looking at fisheries and how we can create what we call living lands.”

She added they intended to look at interventions that were co-created by everyone involved.

“Essentially because it’s not something that we want to do only from an academic standpoint, we also want to engage with our community stakeholders and really into the non-government organisations.

“We are doing agriculture in a way that thinks about health, climate change and environmental issues within the outcome and hopefully we have people producing and eating food that is both healthy and sustainable.”