Vanuatu has recovered agriculturally after the devastating Cyclone Pam almost a year ago.
Acting Director for Agriculture, Mark Vurobaravu said this week, communities that were destroyed heavily by the natural disaster are back to their subsistence life.
Vurobaravu said people have restocked seeds and planting materials of food crops and re-built their gardens.
They planted planting materials that were destroyed, he said, and they did that soon after the event, well before they dried up.
However he also revealed that the current El Nino has disturbed a lot of work put into the recovery initiatives.
"Rural life has returned almost 100% but the El Nino drought has put a lot of pressure on the environment and rural farming," Vurobaravu said.
"Vanuatu was in fact double-troubled within 12 months last year. We are a country known for natural disasters - they put us down but we stand up too soon."
Vurobaravu and a team of senior officials from different agricultural organisations from Vanuatu are in Lae this week.