SIAH students gain more knowledge on farming amid climate change |19 March 2020

Students attending the training (Photo: Jude Morel)

The Entreprendre Au Féminin Ocean Indien Seychelles (EFOIS) yesterday conducted a full-day climate-smart agriculture training programme to 30 second year students from the Seychelles Institute of Agriculture and Horticulture (SIAH) based at Anse à la Mouche.

Funded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), the training was held at the Val D’Andorre training room where the sessions were organised with the objective of developing sustainable climate-smart agriculture for communities on Mahé, Praslin and La Digue, reducing importation of food products and improving food nutrition and security in the country by including women and young people in national development efforts, especially in priority sectors.

“The purpose of the training is to build resilience in communities, especially farming communities for them to better adapt to climate change,” said Claudette Albert, chairperson of EFOIS.

The presentation included talks about shared house technologies, new ways of farming against climate change as well as making them more knowledgeable on global warming and climate change.

“We included young people in this discussion because they are the next generation of farming so we chose to do this presentation with young people to show them that there is a future in farming,” said Mrs Albert.

She also added that EFOIS also encourages young adults that have not been admitted to post-secondary institutions and are jobless.

Freelance consultant Benjamin Vel and Xavier Estico, the chief executive of the National Institute of Science, Technology and Innovation (Nisti) served as the facilitators at the presentation.

Addressing the topic of technologies in farming, Mr Estico said: “Our mandate is to make sure that innovations are made in various sectors.”

He also talked about hydroponics and its importance in farming, adding that we need to continue to persevere and find new ways in which we can modernise the farming sector.

Craig Edmond, one of the second year students at SIAH who attended the presentation told Seychelles NATION that he was already doing a project on the topics that were discussed during the presentation and he will use the knowledge gained to beef up his project as well as apply it in his studies..

Craig is currently studying general agriculture at SIAH.

Christophe Zialor