Hands-on training on sustainable gardening to address climate change and NCD issues in Micronesia

View the project final report

Commodities

Practices

• Crop Production: agroforestry, alley cropping, crop improvement and selection, crop rotation, fallow, fertilizers, foliar feeding, grafting, intercropping, irrigation, nutrient cycling, nutrient management, organic fertilizers, seed saving, shade cloth, terraces, water management
• Education and Training: demonstration, display, extension, farmer to farmer, focus group, workshop, youth education
• Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity, soil stabilization
• Pest Management: biological control, chemical control, cultivation, cultural control, disease vectors
• Production Systems: hydroponics
• Soil Management: composting, earthworms, green manures, organic matter
• Sustainable Communities: quality of life

Over the past 23 years the U.S. Land Grant System, through Western SARE supported professional development and capacity building to agriculture extension agents, farmers, and gardeners in the three island nations, namely Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Palau, and Republic of the Marshall Islands. The College of Micronesia, Land Grant Program, serves the 3 island nations. For the purpose of USDA and SARE, Micronesia is a state and receives the same level of funding like Guam or the Northern Mariana Islands. Micronesia is geographically isolated and is scattered over a large area of the Pacific larger than the United State Mainland. Transportation and communications are significantly expensive and as such are barriers to development because it's next to impossible to coordinate any SARE training activities. This project will capitalize on the recently trained SARE Liaison to asset when PI or a Cooperator who will travel to other islands to evaluate and document sustainable agriculture activities from previous SARE and other funding sources, and to conduct hands-on training at the same time.    

Hands-on training topics will include simple climate change adaptation measures such as composting, sheet-mulching, cover crop, intercropping, and use climate tolerant varieties.

There are two main objectives of this project:

1. To train the liaison, extension agents, and farmers on sustainable gardening that address climate and NCD issues.  This will be achieved when the training is completed at sites by the visiting trainer.  The timeline for achieving this objective is the second to third quarter.

2. To empower the liaisons to train other stakeholders in their communities the practices they have learned.  This is expected to be accomplished in the 3rd and the 4th quarters of the project.