Farming is contextual. On average, it can take up to an hour to grow a single banana tree in the Marshall Islands.

For the veteran farmer in Vanuatu, Samoa, Fiji, Cook Islands or Tonga, the rich volcanic soil means less work and more trees planted under an hour. Volcanic islands versus the atoll, the latter trumps the former in the complexity of planting a single tree.

On volcanic islands, a small hole in the ground and even without maintenance, a banana tree shoots skyward yielding an abundance of fruits to last many seasons. Their rich alluvial soils are a boon for farming and encourage agriculture.

Farming for atoll communities like the Marshalls is different. It is an art of diggings pits filled with rich organic matter, to give one plant a chance at life and abundance.

Marshall Islands is a country of 33 atolls and 1200 islands fringing the edge of Micronesia in the northern Pacific. The stark beauty of the islands dressed in the oceans resplendent blue and crowned with shimmering white beaches masks a harsh reality – the sandy soil is inhospitable and tough to farm.

The salty ocean that every so often heaves itself over dry land compounds the harshness. The tropical sun is hot, and droughts occur, at times claiming all of a farmer’s crops.

To succeed farmers must use resilient techniques for good yields that feed the family and fetch an income.

One such technique is pit planting. Thirty five year old Elvis Aikne looked up from digging a sizable pit for a slight banana tree.

‘Really?’ Elvis Aikne blurted out, not sure, whether to belief his peers across the Pacific do not dig big pits to plant a banana tree.

Another farmer, Karness Kusto piped in ‘Without our nutrient pits a plant can still grow but may never bear fruits.’Karness and Elvis are farmers on Majuro atoll, a narrow land mass spanning 9.7 square kilometres and enclosing a 295 square kilometre lagoon. It is also the seat of government power, main shopping districts, hotels and resorts and home to about 30 percent of the country’s population.

They were demonstrating pit planting, the method captured on video and in print.

The men who are members of the Marshall Islands Organic Farmers Association (MIOFA) based in Laura are documenting best resilient practices for farming, succinctly explaining how to plant a tree the atoll way for easy replication by anyone.

It is a knowledge sharing strategy supported through the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) Capacity Building for Resilient Agriculture in the Pacific Project (IFAD-CBRAP) and the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) Youth Leading Learning in Climate Resilient Value Chains Project (CTA-YLLP).

The projects engage young farmers to do organic farming and get certification. They also document best resilient farming practices with knowledge gained through the guidance of older farmers.

Information Communications Technology (ICT) tools like portable drives and CDs will store best practises information that include how to compost, intercrop, mulch and weather the drought. Made accessible to all farmers in the Marshalls and elsewhere throughout the Pacific, they will promote resilience farming as a defence against climate change.

The Marshalls sandy soil has low organic content. The pit and its contents becomes a life giving pool of nutrition the plant draws from in order to thrive.

‘First we dig a square pit about four feet wide and long. Once you dig and reach the wet sand don’t dig further,’ Elvis explained.

‘The pit must be big enough to accommodate a considerable amount of organic matter.’

‘The coconut husks go in first hold the water and minerals and prevent it from washing off into the sand.’

‘The roots of the plant will grow into the coconut husks making it stronger.’

‘Then we throw in some soil, brown matter, green matter and coconut meal for manure and compost and a good measure of water, it’s like baking a cake.’

‘All these help the plant to grow healthy and bear fruit within nine months. When we do not follow these steps, the plant looks weak and gives little yield. It affects our income,’ Elvis added.

Pit planting traditionally practiced in the Marshalls is appropriate for all types of fruit trees and crops.

Elvis reported seeing his grandparents use the method. A father passes farming knowledge to his son from one generation to the next. However sometimes, farmers get it wrong; the pits are too deep and does not contain enough of the good stuff.The videos show farmers how to do it the right way for good yields to prevent a situation where farmers, discouraged by their farming efforts, quit.

‘We see some farmers digging real deep pits which is totally unnecessary since digging beyond a certain point doesn’t guarantee more nutrition. The pit need only be big enough to accommodate the organic matter we put in that gives the plant health and vitality.

‘Hopefully, with wide sharing of the best practices that will be simple to follow, people will be motivated enough to start their own gardens.’

To promote their local food supply, MIOFA is encouraging families to have organic home gardens as a measure against the country’s high rates of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

A NCDs assessment carried out by the National Institute of Health of the United States published in 2013 showed 62.5 percent of the Marshallese population is overweight. It identified diabetes and its complications, cancer, renal failure and heart disease as leading causes of death cause by risk factors as poor diet, a lack of physical activity and unhealthy behaviours.

A high dependency on imported, canned and processed food have displaced the traditional, nutritionally rich diet consisting primarily of breadfruit, coconut, pandanus, taro, fish, chicken and pork.

Elvis believes if more people are planting their own food and traditional crops, they will have a nutritious supply and be physically active.

‘We just need to show them that planting their own garden isn’t hard. It begins with just one pit, just one plant.’

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