LETTER TO THE EDITOR
The ongoing First Harvest Project as a great idea to provide food security for Samoa, is an old practice to ensure there is plentiful basic food supply, like taros, bananas etc.
It encourages villages to raise their productivity of the land to avoid famine.
Even the Chinese farmers during the Emperors’ reign had also likewise sent their taros of their first harvests to their Emperors.
South China is tropical and farmers have huge plantations of taros, bananas, and coconut trees.
Everything that we produce in our plantations are also grown in China.
In China, even the taro stalks are edible and taro leaves and stalks are cooked in many different styles for entre, main meal and dessert.
In Samoa, over the last 60 years, successive Governments followed the practice of well-planned first harvests using Agriculture shows scheduled during the second half of the year, to display and sell the farmers produce to the viewing public.
Generous monetary prizes are presented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Since 2010, some villages initiated the practice of having their own first harvests and I as Prime Minister was invited to witness these isolated village initiatives.
However, village based first harvest was not popular amongst the villages for without the buyers from outside the village, little or nothing will be sold.
Fast forward now to the First Harvest project in the budget 2023/2024 by the Minister of Agriculture, is used as a political campaign tool for the 2025 General Elections.
A village is informed several days before that the First Harvest will take place in village AB.
It means the Taro and Banana plantations planted 2 days before will be harvested in record time for the show – a miracle.
The Minister Hon Laauli Leuatea Schmidt will bring moneys for prizes, plus cheap spades and wheelbarrows to physically wheel barrow 7 tons of firewood, coconut, taros and other crops 7 miles from the plantation to the village, never mind the brand new Toyota from the son in New Zealand, the fuel is too costly.
But the obvious problem is, there are no taros, or bananas that can be planted, matured and ready for harvest in 2 days to show.
Never mind, just buy whatever taro etc, available in the Apia market and from every village market to Apia, for the show, plus plenty drinking coconuts from the old coconut trees, planted by the great grand-parents already in Paradise.
And every village chief enjoys playing the game.
The following week the recipient villages turn up at the suppliers of these goodies to ask for TVs, Telephones etc, in exchange with the cheap agriculture tools provided by the Minister, on credit from the supplier, who may wait for up to 2 years for payment.
What is ridiculous is, we in the HRPP know the stupidity of all these practices in the FAST districts.
For our members in every district keep reporting to our Caucus the abuses that continue on and on.
And the usual question posed is when can we put a stop to all these malpractices?
The limited supply of our own home grown food stalls has raised the cost of living for our people.
Our response is simple.
This is a Christian based democracy.
We are getting what the majority wanted. And so, enjoy the change with a forgiving heart, charity, patience and self-sacrifice for ease of entry into the Garden of Eden.
Every change happens for a good cause.
Like opening our eyes to see and our minds to think, before we next Jump!
Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi
Leader of HRPP