AITUTAKI CROPS IMPROVED

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28935, 1 July 1959, Page 17

AITUTAKI CROPS IMPROVED

Farm Tuition For Islanders

To show Aitutaki villagers: improved ways of raising crops, a five-acre demonstration farm has been established on the island by the Cook Islands Department of Agriculture, according to a supplement issued by the Department of Island Territories.

Several hundred shoots of dryland taro from Samoa are doing well and both pumpkins and water-melons have already yielded prolific crops. A large area has been planted in peanuts, and special seeding coconut are being raised to help improve Aitutaki’s poorer plantations.

Araura School has started an associated coconut nursery and the co-operative societies in each village are being encouraged to do likewise.

One section of the demonstration farm is devoted to several species of pea, maize, carrots, lettuce, beans, sunflower, granadilla (pomegranate), Indian spinach and tomatoes. Senior pupils of Araura School spend some hours weekly at the farm as part of their practical agriculture syllabus, and have a tomato plot to themselves. The first manager, an Atiu Island foreman partly trained in New Zealand and lent to Aitutakl for six months, is helped by tour of the islanders, one of whom will become foreman.

Though village interest was at first small, the way the crops are growing has now aroused much enthusiasm, and already methods are being copied in some family plots.