Dili, November 10, 2024 (Média Democracia) – The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Forestry, Universidade Nacional Timor Lorosa’e and the ACIAR organization held a launching ceremony for the Toska and Dom Bosco projects. The funding invested in these projects came from the Australian government’s commission to Carles Darwin University. The event was held at City8, Has-Laran, Dili, last Thursday.
According to the ACIAR project leader, Dr. Leigh said that this project is about work productivity seeing that currently agriculture in Timor-Leste is starting to decline, so through this project as a simple way to motivate farmers to produce nutritious food.
“The project that we are implementing for three municipalities, such as, Manufahi, Ainaru and Baucau, this program is implemented in six sub-villages, in one sub-village producing two projects. In addition, through the participatory process of this project, we are together with the community in the form of research questions about what will be done with the community in rural areas.” said ACIAR project leader, Dr. Leigh
He continued, this project will run for four years starting from August 2024 to August 2028. The funding invested in the project is 29 million AUD for four years in Timor-Leste.
“The reason for creating the program for the three municipalities is because of the different life zones in the highlands, which is Ainaru, the southern zone, such as Manufahi, and the northern zone, which is Baucau, so that it can spread throughout Timor-Leste,” he said.
As the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, Vicente de Paulo Correia said that we collaborate with CDU but this project is organized by ACIAR, so we collaborate with them especially in the field of capacity building to conduct research and send people to study abroad.
“This project also involves three employees for three different fields, such as, Soil Science, Agronomy and Socio-Economics. In addition, every year 14 final year students of our Faculty of Agriculture must conduct research on topics relevant to this project program.” Said the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture
He continued, however, on the other hand, they also provide master’s and doctoral scholarships for these projects, but more on increasing capacity regarding routine training in mentoring students who conduct research at the base so that they can increase their insight into this program.
To be clearer, this program aims to increase work productivity in the field for sustainable nutritional production and inclusive living benefits in Timor-Leste. The program’s target through this project is to provide benefits to farmers in three municipalities, such as, Ainaru, Baucau and Manufahi.
Reported by : Nelfiano
Photo : Nelfiano