Disaster READY farming for Timor-Leste’s long dry season

Above: Elda showing the crops she has grown after attending Disaster READY-supported training. Image: Januario Marques / World Vision.

Sometimes disasters come in multiples. For Elda, a 28-year-old farmer from Timor-Leste’s Bobonaro district, low rainfall in the 2020 dry season drastically reduced her crop yield, while her ability to travel to market to sell her produce was hampered by COVID-19 restrictions.

Farming is Elda’s only source of food and income for her family, and this double-hit meant she was struggling to pay school fees for her three children while still feeding them nutritious meals.

Elda’s drive to provide for her family and to improve her future harvests led to her to get involved in village-level disaster preparedness training, led by World Vision as part of the Australian Humanitarian Partnership’s Disaster READY program.

Through the training, she learned techniques to preserve water sources, seed stocks and food for the region’s long dry stretches, and to more effectively plant crops. Participants also received climate-resilient seeds, containers and tarpaulin to prepare for the next growing season, as well as hygiene supplies to help stop the spread of COVID-19.

“The technique for planting crops was new to me but interesting,” Elda said. “I learned how to create a patch where seedlings can be planted together in a line. There is also a particular way of watering plants, which I learned, and it has to be done once a day.”

The vegetable seeds included nutritious pak choy, mung beans, long beans and eggplants, providing healthy options for the family’s meals.

“Currently, we have planted pak choy and it is growing very well. We will plant the rest of seeds in the coming season,” Elda said.

Some 400 households from eight villages are benefiting from Disaster READY initiatives in Bobonaro. World Vision coordinates with village-level disaster management committees to assess which households are most vulnerable to shocks. Under the leadership of the committees and with support from Disaster READY partners, villages plan how to respond to disasters, such as drought, and develop more resilient livelihoods.