The Fijian Government is committed to improving the productivity at the farm level and extending the production of seasonal crops to avoid price gouging of vegetables.

This was relayed by Minister for Agriculture, Waterways and Environment Hon. Dr Mahendra Reddy to farmers from Ra who were recipients of irrigation kits from the Ministry of Waterways and Environment recently.

Hon. Reddy stated that the irrigation kits were being handed over to the farmers as part of an intergovernmental approach between his line Ministries to provide the necessary support and leverage to farmers to boost their productivity levels.

“The primary objective of this irrigation set is to raise your farm productivity and to also allow you to extend your production in seasons or periods where there is less rainfall.

“By doing so, you will be able to increase your farm income, increase productivity, and secondly, you will also be able to push production so that price variations will be minimized,” he said.

“So we are very happy that apart from increasing the areas under production, you are also pushing production through raising productivity. In Fiji, there are a lot of productivity gains to be acquired and if you look at any sector, there is always room to increase productivity,” he added.

Minister Reddy shared that the Ministry of Agriculture’s primary objective was to get agriculture to grow, highlighting the linkages between the tourism sector and the agriculture sector.

“The tourism sector has opened up again and we are pushing the tourism sector to buy from within Fiji, instead of us losing money through the importation of vegetables so we need to expand production, and when we talk to them, they say that during the off-season, it is difficult to get vegetables so that’s why we are now promoting protected agriculture and supported agriculture,” he said.

“This is part of supported agriculture, supporting agriculture into the off-season, protected agriculture is greenhouse, hydroponics which we will be giving to farmers also. With all this considered, there shouldn’t be any reason why you cannot put your effort into getting production from your land to improve and meet the demands of the market.

Fourteen farmers from within the Ra province were awarded their offer letters to receive a full set of irrigation kits worth $2,083.00 which was funded under the Ministry of Waterways and Environment Irrigation Support for Farm Development Programme. 

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