Feast for Health: How Balanced Meals Keep the Doctors Away

“Children who previously did not do well in school, improved when their parents were taught skills on making gardens and how to prepare balanced meals”, says Mailato.

This shows that nutrition plays a vital role in a child’s development – especially their mental abilities and concentration span in class.

Mailato, a Gogodala woman from Awaba is a model farmer under the Better & Enhanced Agriculture for Nutrition (BEAN) Project.

She adds, “We didn’t know about other food, we only knew about our staple food which is sago, coconut, fish, and meat but when they came (BEAN Project), they taught us about the 3 different food groups, energy, protective and protein.”

Mailato compared the situation before and after our intervention, noting that children from poor families were unable to attend school due to hunger, this especially worsened during the wet season when sago, the preferred staple, becomes scarce. Sago is typically harvested during dry seasons to avoid logistical difficulties encountered in wet seasons.

The Delta Fly District in Papua New Guinea’s Western Province is known for its regular floods and persistent rainfall, which poses significant challenges to local farmers attempting to cultivate crops.

These difficulties are compounded by poor soil quality, pest outbreaks, and a lack of access to modern farming techniques, severely limiting agricultural productivity.

Despite these obstacles, the Gogodala people heavily rely on sago as a dietary staple, supplemented by freshwater fish, prawns, coconuts, and various meats like wallabies and birds. These foods are the foundation of their daily meals.

Sago palms, essential to their diet, take several decades to reach full maturity, typically spanning 50 to 100 years and growing to heights of 10-12 feet, similar to the height of the Big Penguin in Penguin, Tasmania (Australia) or the Sir Michael Somare Statue in Port Moresby.

Harvested traditionally at 15-20 years old, these palms sustain the community over many years through careful management and harvesting practices.

However, sago alone lacks essential nutrients vital for human development, particularly proteins crucial for muscle repair and immunity. It also lacks key vitamins (A, C, and B) and minerals (calcium and iron), which can lead to conditions such as scurvy, anemia, and weakened bones.

Over-reliance on sago without adding other nutrients can result in health issues like malnutrition, stunted growth in children, and impaired cognitive development. This dietary imbalance affects overall immunity, vision, skin health, and digestion.

Hence our intervention through the BEAN project with funding support from the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP) and technical support from the Government of Papua New Guinea through the National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI) and the Department of Agriculture and Livestock (DAL).

We work in close partnership to address these risks, emphasising a diverse diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and dairy alternatives is essential, especially for children.

Such a balanced diet supports proper growth, development, and overall health, offsetting potential deficiencies associated with a diet overly reliant on sago, fish, meats, and coconuts alone.

In its first year, the project has touched the lives of 1,109 people through various - inclusive project initiatives aligned to two main project outcomes.

1. Outcome (1) aims to improve the nutrition of children under 5 and their mothers. It focuses on better food access through improved production, availability, and affordability of diverse nutritious foods; and

2. Outcome (2) Enhance the use and consumption of age-appropriate nutritious foods

By teaching sustainable farming practices and promoting better nutrition, the project is helping families grow healthier food and build stronger futures.

This milestone is not just about numbers—it's about real people gaining the knowledge and tools to improve their lives and their communities. BEAN is planting the seeds for a brighter, healthier tomorrow and one such example is Mailato.

She says, “We attended a training in 2021, there were 5 of us from Awaba, all female. We were taught a lot of things. The facilitators came with many seedlings, like Cassava, different kinds of beans, sweet potatoes, and African yams, and taught us different ways of planting food.”

Participants were taught about climate change and its impacts on traditional farming practices and how these practices must be improved through climate-smart agriculture techniques.

Mailato attended the workshop which was convened for a different – World Vision project, but eventually became beneficial when the ANCP BEAN project began its implementation.

Improving farming practices is crucial for building resilience to climate change, reducing environmental impacts, ensuring food security, and supporting farmers' livelihoods.

Since the District is prone to prolonged rains, project beneficiaries were trained to make gardens in wet seasons and create a bed for planting using dry wood, coconut husks, and a small amount of soil. This is to ensure that farmers do not run out of food in times of wet seasons when the soil is soaked and cannot allow for food growth.

After the training, Mailato returned to her community and trained some of her community members, saying, “I trained other women, some young men and women, and some married couples too. After training them, I saw that they started to make gardens. Some of them, for the first time”, she says.

Learning vital skills through the BEAN project on climate-smart farming has inspired change in families and communities – not only in Mailato’s community of Awaba but the other 11 project sites in the District.

“We brought this knowledge back to our villages, to teach our community members, most of whom are living in very poor conditions. We trained them and gave them seedlings to start planting for themselves to help their families. And now we are seeing very big change”, says Mailato.

Isaiah 43:18-19. It reads:

18. “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.

19. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."

The text is the foundation of Mailato’s sheer interest and enthusiastic involvement in the BEAN Project.

She believes that the implementation of such an important project on building skills and improving knowledge of farmers, not only around agriculture but also nutrition and other vital aspects is directly benefitting beneficiaries who are involved with the project, to Mailato, this is a divine intervention and she is grateful.