Transcript
FATHER LUC DINI: Our food is a little bit special from the central part of Vanuatu, in the sense that it has a very nice taste. Fish tastes different. The food from the soil tastes different. Coconut water is sweet. Pineapple and Mango and all these things are very sweet. That is the starting of the thinking of organic. And when we come to think about that we see that all our trees and our food in the soil have its natural tests. Instead of importing, one day when some people may come to import chemicals, to say 'OK we increase the quantity or the value of your product', and instead of making it better it makes it bad. We had this experience in other provinces before so we decided to say OK we declare Torba to be an 'Organic Province' and then we are sending all the necessary information to the Tourism Department and also to the Bio- Security Department of the ministry so that they can work to nationally declare that Torba province has become an 'Organic Province'. Already I have instructed all bungalow owners in Torba to start this year, serving local food only to the tourists when they visit our province.
KORO VAKA'UTA: How many bungalows and tourism accommodations, things like that, are in Torba?
FLC: We have 23 bungalow owners. Already we can accommodate over 200 tourists at one time.
KV: How will you enforce this organic declaration? How will it be done? Will you just promote the fact that organic is better?
FLC: Already we ourselves, we know that organic is better but to make [and give] the world proof we have to go by the law. We say OK we have passed one of the legislation at the [Torba Tourism] Council meeting to say we declare Torba is organic. Local people themselves, they already knew that their food is organic and that food is better than imported food.
KV: So the province has the resources to sustain this?
FLC: We will go step by step because to delete all the imported food items in this province, it will be very difficult, but we started with our own guests. As they arrive, there will be no rice, no tin fish, no tin meat, no noodles. So the for the tea we will use the ferns and the tea leaves and all these things to start with. By doing that we start cutting out some of these imported items.
