Agriculture
In Renbell province, a great majority of land disputes are over farming plots. Many villages are used as gardening villages (subsistence farming) since the population has moved to larger neighboring villages. The farming plots are carved out of the forest and farming paths carved to reach the plots. The soil from a coral atoll is not as fertile as other islands such as the volcanic Guadalcanal. Often the boundaries of these plots are guessed which gives rise to the various disputes.
The crops grown include sweet potato and slippery cabbage and to a lesser extent, Taro. In the 1990s a virus decimated the Taro crops and now crops are under threat by a more natural enemy. At the arrival of RAMSI in 2004, all Solomon Islanders were encouraged to hand-in their firearms following the period of ethnic tensions and many farmers who had used guns to protect their crops were also required to surrender their guns. In 2008 many farmers now complain that the native bird Tekagae, Kagae or Rednose (NZ is known as Swamp Hen or Pukeko) “has tripled in population since the gun amnesty”. Apparently the Tekagae can’t be eaten and is very clever, being able to sense the arrival of a person and counteract any efforts of deterrence such as scarecrows or ribbon and “many families have gone hungry and many farmers have given up trying to farm and we appeal to RAMSI to serious consider appropriate action".
Read more about this topic: Rennell Island
Famous quotes containing the word agriculture:
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“But the nomads were the terror of all those whom the soil or the advantages of the market had induced to build towns. Agriculture therefore was a religious injunction, because of the perils of the state from nomadism.”
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