For a few hours each evening when the town generator is turned on, a small radio transmitter in the hills above Maliana broadcasts music, call-in, and information programs to homes throughout the Maliana basin. Staffed entirely by volunteers and using equipment donated from a variety of programs over the last 12 years, Maliana Community Radio is a popular source of news and entertainment for families in rural areas of the Bobonaro district. (more…)
At more than 200 farms in East Timor hundreds of farmers are giving valuable feedback
on the new test varieties of corn: Sele and P07. At the start of the wet season SoL researchers
worked with farmers to establish small plots of new varieties alongside the seed the farmer would normally plant. Now at harvest time the farmers and researchers are together measuring and judging the new varieties.
Harvesting the corn plots
There are two new varieties being tested this year. One is the released variety called Sele, and the second is a white corn from Central Mindanao University in the southern Philippines (CMU Var 12). As the small 5m by 5m plots are harvested the weight of each variety is recorded along with the farmer’s preference. To involve more farmers SoL organises a field day in each subdistrict where neighbours of the testing farmers also come to see and assess the new varieties for themselves. After harvesting some cobs of each variety are threshed and cooked for tasting.
Threshing each variety, ready for cooking
The farmers are very pleased with the new white corn. The new variety not only gives 30% more grain but is also very sweet to eat as a roasted corn. The seed colour is a very clear pearly white. It also has the large seed size that farmers like. Based on what the farmers are seeing and saying more than 80% of them want to plant the new white corn again next year.
Judging the varieties.
It is client feedback like this that enables the SoL program to release new varieties with confidence.
Last month’s successful visit of the Secretary of State (SoS) to informal seed production groups in Aileu spurred his interest to see Seeds of Life (SoL) activities in the other districts, so a similar visit to inspect both formal and informal seed production activities in the Baucau district was arranged for February 17. This visit also involved the ceremonial turnover to farmer groups of 50 rice threshers procured by FAO.
The SoS was welcomed to SoL’s formal seed warehouse and processing facilities at Triloka by MAF Baucau staff including the district administrator, district director, chief of extension, suco extension officers, and farmers as well as Adalfredo Ferriera, national Director Research, Rob Williams, SoL Research Adviser and Joao Fernandez, AusAid representative. The SoS inspected seed processing and storage facilities including the large amount of improved “Nakroma” variety rice seed ready for distribution. He then viewed a presentation explaining SoL’s formal seed production and distribution system and a briefing on the program’s informal seed production and distribution activities in Baucau district before inspecting impressive informal maize and peanut seed production plots established by community seed production groups in suco Tequino Mata.
The SoS acknowledged the relevance of the MAF-SoL program and effectiveness of both its formal and informal seed production and distribution activities in addressing Timor-Leste’s drive for food sufficiency.
The party then proceeded to MAF Baucau office for ceremonial handover of rice threshers purchased by FAO. Following the SoS, other officials addressed the crowd of about 200 farmer participants. The district administrator and the SoS emphasized working hard and diligently for food sufficiency while the district director spoke of the importance of having quality seeds locally available at planting time and not being dependent on seed of questionable quality arriving late from overseas.
A delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) and Seeds of Life (SoL) visited the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Banos Laguna Philippines from 5 to 9 February to establish a long-term collaboration between the two organizations in various aspects of agricultural research and training relevant to improving food security in Timor-Leste.
The delegation included the National Director for Research and Special Services, National Director for Agriculture and Horticulture, SoL 3 Australian Team Leader (ATL), SoL 3 Research Advisor, Irrigated Rice Research Manager, Training Coordinator and Short-term Training Advisor.
IRRI welcomes MAF-SoL staff
The MAF-SoL delegation had the chance to interact with IRRI scientists and learn about new developments in rice research. The group was also given a tour of the whole IRRI experimental station as well as the Rice Genebank and other laboratories.
Dr. Roland Buresh explaining the long-term continuous cropping experiment
On the last day, IRRI arranged for the MAF-SoL delegation to visit a community of farmers in Infanta Quezon engaged in seed production. The group had the chance to hear the stories of the farmer group as well as share the rice production practices in Timor Leste.
Interaction with community seed production group in Infanta Quezon Philippines
Hear Regina's story: After changing the variety of rice the group grows to the Ministry of Agriculture's improved rice variety, Nakroma, Regina and her members have seen improvements in yields, resulting in higher profits. Download via Vimeo.
