Dr Reddy said the agriculture GDP, exclusive of growing sugarcane grew by 5.5percent.

“The higher real growth was attributed to yaqona and taro. Yaqona and taro contributed 29percent or $208.2m and 7percent or $52.9m respectively to the total agriculture GDP,” he said.

He said yaqona was again identified as a major contribution to the growth of the sector and the commodity to mark as a possible major contributor to Fiji’s National GDP in the near future if production continued to increase and price remained constant.

He said, crop commodities showed a positive GDP growth rate of 9.2percent, which excluded the growing of sugarcane. However, a decline in livestock commodities of 4percent was recorded in 2019 compared to 2018 mainly due to impact of Brucellosis diseases which affected the dairy industry.

“There was an increase in GDP contribution from 5.6percent or $597.2m to 5.9percent or $630.2m in 2019, exclusive of sugarcane,” he revealed.

The Minister said the statistics were again proof that agriculture would cushion the global impact of the pandemic of COVID-19 and it was critically important that all attention should focus on growing this sector in the different areas, which would in turn take care of the other aspects of the economy that were lagging behind.

-ENDS-

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