pulaka

A taro made for atolls

Giant swamp taro is a relative of common taro, but a taller plant with bigger leaves and larger, coarser roots. It is grown across the Pacific under many names: babai in Kiribati, pula’a in Samoa, via in Fiji, and pulaka in Tuvalu and Tokelau.

On low coral islands with thin, poor soil, it is one of the few food crops that grows well. Pulaka has long been the main source of carbohydrate in the Tuvaluan diet, eaten alongside fish from the sea, and Tuvalu’s government still counts it among the country’s traditional staples.

Grown in pits

Pulaka is not planted in open fields. Growers dig pits by hand down to the water table, so that the roots can reach the thin lens of fresh water that lies beneath the islands. Tuvalu’s government describes them as deep, manually dug pits.

The soil in a pit is largely made by people. Leaves are composted with sand from the pit floor, and the growing bed is continually reworked and fed with fresh organic matter.

The pits belong to families and are tended over generations, and the craft of growing pulaka passes from father to son. A grower filmed for a United Nations report in 2010 described teaching his son as practising how to live as a man.

The crop is slow: the corms take years to mature, but they can also be left in the ground for decades, which has made giant swamp taro a reserve for hard times.

From the pit to the umu

Raw pulaka is toxic, so it is always cooked, and for hours, usually in the umu, the earth oven heated with hot stones. The cooked corms are rich in calcium.

Coconut cream, called lolo, goes into many pulaka dishes. For fekei, a pulaka pudding, the root is grated, wrapped in leaves, cooked and then mixed with coconut cream.

A staple under pressure

Because the pits reach down to groundwater, they suffer whenever salt water pushes in. Storm surges and high tides drive seawater into the freshwater lens, and long droughts raise salinity too. Salt rots the roots, turns the leaves yellow and stunts the plants, and some pits have been abandoned.

Eating habits are changing too. Younger people often prefer rice and imported food, and Tuvalu’s agriculture department has warned since at least 2008 that the growing of pulaka is in decline.

Tuvaluans are adapting: farmers and community groups have been building raised beds and pits, filled with compost, out of the reach of salt water. Tuvalu’s government has named the threat to pulaka in its climate submissions to the United Nations, from its national adaptation programme to a recent contribution on sea-level rise.

In Emblem World, pulaka sits in the Tuvalu food collection, where people discover and rate local food, drink and music.