Time has come to introduce agriculture specific training in schools
In years to come, agriculture will assume a greater importance and science will play a major part in securing our future sustenance.
Future security of our agriculture will also rely on enough knowledgeable growers entering the industry. At present the current crop of growers is getting older and they will tell you that few young ones are coming through to replace them. Associate Minister for Agriculture, Kiriau Turepu, who is a grower, recently expressed his concerns at this scenario to the Times. In his view, something needs to be done and soon. He would like to see agriculture lessons introduced into our schools.
Agriculture is not a matter of simply anyone sticking a plant in the ground and expecting it to grow. Our farmers of the future will need to have a greater knowledge of the science behind agriculture.
Climate change, the prevalence of diseases, the shortage of productive land mean that for the Cook Islands we will need to look to crops resilient in times of adverse weather conditions such as a drought, crops with higher yields, crops of greater nutritional value and crops which will mature quicker.
Over the last few years, China has been instrumental in assisting Cook Islanders to gain a deeper knowledge of the science behind agriculture to help them improve and strengthen production. China is to be congratulated for this initiative.
This year, the Ministry of Agriculture arranged for three persons from Mauke, grower Hugh Graham and two agricultural officers Tereapii (Ine) Vaine Keu and Archie (Piki) Taripo, to attend a training course on tropical fruits and vegetables plantation and processing technology for developing countries, held on the island province of Hainan in China, from 6 June to 6 July 2012.
35 people from 20 countries attended. Also from the Pacific, were representatives from East Timor, Samoa and PNG.
Speaking to the Times on Wednesday, Hugh admits the training sessions were intense and varied, covering a wide range of vegetables and fruits.
The course covered such topics as harvesting, processing, packing, canning and marketing of fruits such as mangoes, pineapples, coconut, cashew, lichees and some vegetables. Topics on plantation technology and techniques were also covered.
According to Hugh, Ine and Piki intend to look at what they might be able to improve in terms of a more structured and managed way of fruit tree planting, harvesting and processing.
Following the training course, Hugh submitted a report to the Ministry of Agriculture but the report itself or the contents of that report are for the Ministry to make public. To date that has not happened which raises the question whether the Ministry intends to be proactive or reactive when it comes to keeping the public informed.
Hugh, personally, is of the view that an important consideration arising from these ongoing training courses conducted by China is what lessons can we learn and implement as a result?
According to a study commissioned for the US government in 2011, China turned its agricultural industry around and into a world leader by investing a greater proportion of the annual budget for its Ministry of Agriculture, in research and development. To supplement the short fall in their salary allocation, agriculture staff were forced to enter into partnerships with the private sector.
Hugh is of the view that government should consider introducing an “agriculture specific” curriculum into primary and secondary schools. This will especially enable those children who assist parents in their plantations to build their capacity of scientific knowledge for when they themselves become growers.
Part of the school curriculum should include an agricultural research and testing component so children can learn basic laboratory techniques and create interest among the young in perhaps taking up a career later in agricultural science and research and development following further tuition at a higher level.
This writer is reminded of the recent efforts by former agriculturist Mike Tavioni when tutoring the Rakai boys referred to him by Kevin Iro, in growing, planting and production techniques. Each day, Tavioni made the boys learn the botanical name, English name and Maori name of different crops. He taught them how to plant the crops, what fertilizer or organic material to use, how to care for the crops during growth and how much to plant in order to recover expenses when the crop is eventually sold. All this tutoring was conducted informally but created a lot of interest among the boys. Unfortunately, lack of funding saw Tavioni’s involvement discontinued. Tavioni was trained at Massey University in New Zealand and later worked on research projects there.
Hugh says there are others on Rarotonga who have agricultural research skills but their expertise has been overlooked.
To utilize Cook Islanders with such skills, there could be some advantage in requesting that China or one of New Zealand’s agricultural universities, Massey or Lincoln, assist in designing and setting up training courses aimed at young students.
This is an issue which could be raised and discussed with the Chinese or NZ delegations to the Pacific Leader’s Forum later this month. -Charles Pitt

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