A high number of Honiara residents are asking for seedlings from the National Agriculture and Livestock Research Development Centre (NARLDC).
Lilly Wame from NARLDC says at the moment a lot of people are enquiring about these seedlings at the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock.
“We have a lot of queue at the moment and we cannot deny the fact they all need the seedlings. But we have to be cautious since we have a high number of requests coming in both from online platforms and at our office desk”, she said.
She said their initial target was to get 300 customers. However they have already reached more than 300 requests for seedlings.
“To respond to the high number of requests will definitely slow our distribution if we are to meet the requests by all of those seeking assistance in seedlings. With the special measures in place, we are encouraging respondents to send in their details via our facebook page”, she said.
The official handover of the first batch of seedlings took place at the NARLDC site at King George.
NARLDC under MAL is mandated by the National Disaster Operations Center (NDOC) Livelihood Committee.
They are tasked to carry out work to ensure food supply (vegetables) for Honiara is maintained even when in a lock-down situation, due to COVID-19.
The official handover was done by Agriculture Minister, Hon. Levi Senely Filualea.