Organic Gardening and Farming in Fiji

Students of Andrews Primary school on the Nadi back road, like every other schools in the country, go through their daily curriculum but also use outdoor gardening as a learning process. The school was established in 1918 and has a roll of 700 students from Class One to Class Eight. The headteacher, Mohammed Rasheed, said gardening also taught students to have a healthy lifestyle. He said it gave students an insight of what could be done in their backyard at home. He said in the Third Term, students and their gardener would plant pumpkin and harvest it in late January or early February. “When the pumpkin is harvested we plant other crops such as dhania, radish, French and long bean, okra, cucumber, bindhi, tomatoes and eggplant,” he said. “On the hill slopes we plant cassava. The garden is maintained by our school gardener and the children. “This is one form of substituting our school fees which is very low. This is one of the school’s income-generating projects. “When it’s harvest s...