ISAAC MARTY
Patients at Leroij Atama Zedkaia Memorial Hospital in Majuro are first to eat and benefit from the Majuro Agroforest Park (located at the hospital) that was officially opened last month. The park was developed through a partnership among Canvasback Wellness Center, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ LDS Charities, and Taiwan Technical Mission also known as Taiwan Farm.
The development promotes a healthy lifestyle and education. Starting this month and continuing on a monthly basis, patients will be able to harvest fresh fruits and vegetables from the park, explained Canvasback Wellness Center Director Tanner Smith.
The park includes coconut trees, lime trees, and bananas, among about 30 different varieties planted in a layout system that has created diverse, productive, profitable, healthy, and sustainable land use making great use of limited space. Taiwan Farm leader Andy Chiang said his organization provided the seeds and he’s happy to see them put to good use.
LDS Charities provided technical experts on gardening to train locals (who are expected to share the knowledge to the community), 250 earth boxes that Wellness Center will use in its gardening workshops with local residents, four park benches, solar-power lighting, and church missionaries who helped with some of the ground preparation.
“We are very pleased to partner with Wellness Center and Taiwan Farms to help create this agroforest,” said LDS Majuro Stake President Zedhkeia Zedhkeia. “We hope that through our combine efforts we will be able to increase the number of gardens on island and the amount of fresh local produce available to Marshallese households. We expect this will then help reduce the incidence of diabetes.”
Read more about this in the January 15, 2016 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.