- Fiji has experienced a health crisis with 70% of deaths from non-communicable diseases like heart disease and diabetes. This is attributed to a shift away from nutrient-rich local foods to processed foods. - When the pandemic hit, many lost their jobs in tourism and had trouble feeding their families. FRIEND responded by providing food banks, seedlings, and training in food preservation and urban gardening to grow local foods. - Partnerships were formed between organizations, communities, and the government to promote communal gardens, resilient crop varieties, and new food systems focused on local foods to improve nutrition and food security.

1. Digital Summit
– Global Landscapes Forum
Bonn 3-5 June
Going to Scale with Smart Investments in Community Food Production and
Health Initiatives: A Response to Fiji’s Health Crisis
Sashi Kiran

2. Fiji Islands
• A small Island State in the Pacific Ocean
• High Dependency on Tourism Sector
• Cash economy took us away from nutrient rich local foods towards
eating over processed foods
• 70% of all deaths in Fiji is attributed to NCD (non communicable
diseases )- cardio vascular and diabetes related complications lead
•

4. • Founded in 2001- post 2000 civil unrest - 1st office opening in 2002 August
• FRIEND- Main focus alleviation of poverty through socio economic health empowerment
programs sustainably
• Underlying objective – Integrated holistic development and improved race relations
through participatory and interactive learning among the two major ethnic groups
• Has been working extensively in the area of organic food production for health and food
security
• Has been running programs on development diverse nutrition backyard gardens

5. Impact of Pandemic
• Lautoka city went into lockdown in March for 14 days with first case
discovery
• Most low income, casual workers, hawkers had challenges in feeding their
families within a week
• FRIEND mobilized with food and medicine delivery program together with
seedlings and cuttings
• In the last 2.5 months around 120,000 estimated to have lost their
employment (that’s from a population of 800,000)
• Quickly people realized food purchasing could be a challenge and turned to
gardening
• Food banks in the short term

6. What was needed
• Planting materials
• Knowledge on seed production, planting, Pest Management
• How to shift from processed to local foods
• What are resilient varieties
• Partnerships – Agencies including MOA provided seeds, educational
materials – My Kana App, FRIEND, data capture by Traseable
Solutions
• TISI Sangam, CSO Alliance, Youth Alliance , Womens NGOs,
Community Leaders

7. Management
• Information
• Forecasting and purchasing power in coming months
• Mind set
• Re-learning with limited resources available
• Evolving new food systems

8. Our Response
• Food Bank
• Seedlings
• Information sharing on soil, seed, planting, organic pest management
• Urban gardens for little or no land
• Communal gardens in rural and urban centres
• Food preservation training
• Food preservation to include in food banks to replace processed
foods

9. Building Partnerships
• Agriculture Ministry, Food Cluster
• Communities- communal farms for food gardens
• Community organisations, CSOs
• Development Partners
• Technical support
• New ways of thinking about food scaling

10. Leveraging the Development of Local Food Crops and
Fisheries Value Chains for Improved Nutrition and
Sustainable Food Systems in the Pacific Islands
(with a focus on Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands,
Tonga, and Vanuatu)