Every morning, Wilfred Luiramo checks the seaweed stakes in the shallows of Solomon Islands' Western Province. He clears away overnight debris and inspects each line. Lately, he’s spent a lot of time waiting. Continuous rain has kept him off the water, and he can’t say when it will stop. “The weather pattern keeps changing and it’s impossible to predict,” he said. “Today it will rain, tomorrow it’s sunny, and it keeps changing all the time.”
Luiramo owns Haleta Seaweed, a local enterprise that employs many families. He’s among several aquaculture farmers in Solomon Islands, Fiji and Palau who say shifting weather linked to El Niño is disrupting production of seaweed, fish, mud crab and giant clam. The traditional knowledge they’ve relied on to decide when to plant, harvest, dry or wait is proving less dependable.
Forecasters say conditions could worsen. They warn the 2026-27 El Niño could become a “super” event. China’s National Climate Centre says the event is developing rapidly and could become the strongest since instrumental records began. Sea surface temperatures in the central-eastern equatorial Pacific ran more than 2.5°C above normal in the first half of August.
Who Bears the Weather
For seaweed farmers, sunlight is part of the problem. Growth depends on suitable temperatures, salinity, currents and tides, and farmers must dry the crop before packaging and selling it. “Sometimes, we do not have sunlight for the whole week,” Luiramo said. “When the seaweed products are slow to dry, we cannot package and sell them. This affects the income of everyone in the community.”
Tropical Cyclone Maila destroyed every seaweed farm in his community in April, he said. The low-tide period has also dragged on. “The normal low tide period is around June,” Luiramo said. “But for this year, we still experience low tide from June, July, and August.”
In Fiji, tilapia farmer Katarina Senabu Baleisuva feeds her fish three times a day and checks water quality constantly. “When it’s very hot, the water level goes down,” she said. “And when the rains come, the water turns very cold and sometimes the ponds flood. It really affects our production. We’re finding it hard to make a livelihood.” Baleisuva won the Tilapia Farmer of the Year award at Fiji’s National Women in Agriculture Awards.
Tarusila Veibi, a mud crab farmer in Fiji, says the season has turned upside down. “At this time of the year, we start to have rain,” she said. “But now it’s really dry and cold and windy. The trees are starting to die.” There’s no green grass for her cows, and the river is slowly dropping.
In Palau, giant clam farmer Patty Kloulechad is dealing with hot, dry weather that has parched soil and warmed tap water. High coastal water temperatures and low rainfall have accelerated algae growth in her clam cages, smothering the clams. She now earns less than she used to.
What’s at Stake
The money involved is modest by global standards, but matters enormously at home. Aquaculture generates an estimated US$130-180 million a year across the Pacific Islands, roughly 0.5 per cent of regional GDP. Fisheries and aquaculture account for 7 per cent of national GDP in Solomon Islands.
Seaweed farmers in Wagina, a regional hub in Solomon Islands, can earn US$1,200 a month, compared with a national average annual income of US$800. Tilapia-farming households in Fiji can earn US$1,600 gross and about US$700 net per production cycle. Wild mud crab fishers in Fiji, 88 per cent of whom are Indigenous women, can earn 60-70 Fijian dollars a week. That money pays for school fees and daily needs.
Fiji’s tilapia sector began in 1998, when Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia was introduced to support long-term food security and rural livelihoods. Fiji is now the Pacific’s largest tilapia producer, at about 400 tonnes a year. More than 350 farms operate across the country, mostly at subsistence and semi-commercial levels.
The Support Gap
Farmers are adapting largely on their own. Baleisuva dug boreholes to reach groundwater and, with some government support, built more ponds to store water for dry spells. She’s also diversifying. “I cannot rely on aquaculture alone,” she said. “I have to do both agriculture and aquaculture.” But there’s a catch: “I’m finding it difficult to find financial support, for my aquaculture especially.”
Island communities rely heavily on water tanks for drinking and for washing seaweed and fish cages, so stored water must serve households and farms alike. Luiramo wants seaweed farmers to grow short-term crops such as cabbage, aubergine and tomatoes. “For those of us on the islands, we don’t have many options, but we need to build resilience,” he said.
Baleisuva said, “We really need to work together with the government.” She added that many rural farmers are left behind and their voices aren’t heard. Luiramo said solidarity has kept seaweed farming alive in his community for around 40 years, despite inconsistent commercial or government support. He called for policy reform. “The existing gaps between government and communities delay responses to farmers’ needs,” he said. “We need policies that can integrate local knowledge, seaweed farming expertise, and scientific research.”
The four farmers offered advice to others, especially those in South and South-East Asia preparing for El Niño. “Try to work smart,” Baleisuva said. “Don’t rely on one commodity but do integrated farming.” Veibi said: “Get prepared before it gets worse.” Kloulechad pointed to experience: “We have been in El Niño conditions before. We try to review past strategies, adapt successful practices to our current situation, and conserve our existing resources.”
Why This Matters: The people described here aren’t large commercial operators. They’re small-scale farmers, many of them women, whose earnings cover school fees, daily needs and community employment. When rain, heat or tides break from old patterns, the losses hit first at households with few alternatives. Luiramo says that on the islands, “we don’t have many options.” Baleisuva says financial support is hard to find and rural voices go unheard. The farmers aren’t waiting passively, but their adaptations—from boreholes to extra ponds to new crops—depend on money, water storage and information. Governments and communities can provide those things together. Forecasters warn of a possible “super” El Niño, and whether policy catches up with the weather is an immediate question.