East Timor

Country News and Stories

Minister Rudd visits East Timor
Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd visited the ‘Seeds of Life’ program at Maliana in East Timor on 10 July 2011 to see first-hand how this 9-year old ACIAR/AusAID-funded program is building East Timor’s capacity to feed itself.

Partnership to help enhance food security in East Timor
Representatives of the Timor Leste and Australian Governments signed a joint agreement to implement a new, national seed system to disseminate improved staple crop varieties throughout Timor Leste in Dili on 31 January 2011.

ABC Landline, 26 December
ACIAR-funded projects in East Timor, Solomon Islands and Vietnam will feature on ABC Landline on ABC TV on Sunday 26 December 2010. View stories by reporters Tim Lee from East Timor, Joanna McCarthy from Solomon Islands, and Kerry Staight from Vietnam. All travelled with the assistance of the Crawford Fund.

Seeds of Life on ABC TV
The progress being made in building food production and reducing hunger in East Timor through the ‘Seeds of Life’ program is the focus of a special feature on ABC TV’s Landline program.

A Microcosm of Global Food Security - Seeds of Life
The CGIAR is encouraging government leaders attending the World Food Summit in Rome to consider the case of East Timor – viewing it as an instructive microcosm of global efforts to achieve food security. Despite the difficulties faced by the small island nation, East Timor has brought household food security within reach in a remarkably short time.

Reducing hunger in East Timor through new crop varieties
The East Timor Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has announced the release of two new high-yielding, sweet cassava varieties found to more than double the yield of local varieties.

Seeds of Life review
An external team undertook a review of the Seeds of Life (SoL) program in East Timor in 2009, focusing on the second phase of the program from September 2005 to January 2009. The team found that the second phase of SoL has been very successful, and is directly responsible for food productivity improvements in more than a quarter of East Timor's villages.