Nauru

Project overview

The Nauru Food Systems Integrated Program project supports the Government of Nauru’s efforts to transform its food system in alignment with the National Sustainable Development Strategy, the National Food Systems Pathway, and the Climate Smart Agriculture Plan. It advances national goals to enhance food security, rehabilitate degraded land, and reduce vulnerability to climate change while fostering a more resilient and sustainable economy.

The project focuses on the island’s severely degraded landscapes, where more than a century of phosphate mining, limited arable land, water scarcity, invasive species, and climate impacts threaten food production, biodiversity, and community well-being. These fragile ecosystems—especially the mined “Topside” areas—represent among the most degraded environments among Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and require targeted restoration to support agriculture and ecological recovery.

In response, the project promotes integrated, nature‑positive food systems approaches that restore degraded soils, expand climate‑smart agriculture, strengthen governance, and build community capacity. Through soil rehabilitation, agroforestry development,  Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) demonstration farms, and strengthened agricultural value chains, the project aims to increase local production, reduce dependence on food imports, improve nutritional outcomes, and rebuild ecosystem services. In doing so, it enhances livelihoods, strengthens climate resilience, and contributes to the long‑term restoration and sustainability of Nauru’s unique island environment.

Our approach

The project applies an integrated landscape and food systems approach that connects policy, production, ecosystems, and markets to address Nauru’s severe land degradation, food insecurity, and climate vulnerabilities. It aligns governance reform, soil rehabilitation, sustainable agriculture, and local market development into a unified framework for national food system transformation. 

Activities focus on strengthening food systems governance through improved coordination mechanisms such as the Agriculture Sector Partner Group, new national guidelines for climate‑smart agriculture, and enhanced institutional capacity. The project promotes nature‑positive and climate‑smart practices, including soil restoration on mined lands, establishing climate‑smart agroforestry systems and scaling these practices across farms and households, agroforestry, biodiversity‑friendly crop cultivation, sustainable livestock management to increase resilience and restore ecosystem functions and strengthening community‑based resource management. It also builds a foundation for a local agricultural market by improving value chains and supporting household and farm‑level production. 

Knowledge platforms, peer‑learning farms, awareness programs, and monitoring systems foster innovation and guide evidence‑based decision‑making and scaling. The project places strong emphasis on gender equality and social inclusion, ensuring that women, youth, people with disabilities, and vulnerable households have equitable access to training, resources, and benefits across all components of food systems transformation.

Sites

The project is implemented across key agricultural and restoration sites throughout Nauru, including the DEMA demonstration farms in Menen, Buada, and Anabar, as well as household gardens, private farms, and school and church kitchen gardens. These areas also include priority landscapes such as old phosphate mining sites designated for soil restoration and agroforestry development, which are central to rebuilding ecosystem functions and expanding climate‑smart agriculture.