Picture: Minister for Agriculture, Waterways and Environment Hon. Dr Mahendra Reddy with the recipients of B2RA farm kits.

225 Fijians, whose source of livelihoods and employment were affected as a result of COVID-19 were proud recipients of the Ministry of Agriculture's Back To Rural Agriculture (B2RA) programme.

There were 84 farmers who received their packages yesterday at the Legalega Research Station in Nadi, with 30 recipients receiving theirs in Ba, 50 in Sigatoka and an additional 49 farmers receiving their packages in Rakiraki.

While addressing the B2RA recipients, Minister for Agriculture, Waterways and Environment Hon. Dr. Mahendra Reddy praised them for opting to take up agriculture after the untimely circumstances they were dealt with.

"All of you have been affected by the pandemic. And all of you have now decided to move to agriculture and we want to thank you for that. You have been working hard and pushing agriculture at a time when we desperately needed the agriculture sector to prop up our economy to provide livelihoods to households both in urban and rural areas.

"Your efforts have seen major headway in terms of improvement in livelihoods, security of households with respect to food and nutrition, improving national incomes, and increase in export revenue," said Minister Reddy.

He also shared that despite the pandemic, subsequent restrictions, challenges and increasing freight rates etc, in 2020 in comparison to 2019, the export of fresh/chilled produce still increased by 16% in volume.

"Despite all that, production still went up, we met the demand and the supply went up, prices went down locally too, and we were able to push a lot of produce out of the country to bring in the much needed foreign currency.

"Thank you, thanks to the middlemen, thanks to the exporters all stakeholders who are involved in pushing agriculture. This year, first 6 months, compared to last year first 6 months our exports went up by 8%, in real terms in volume, we have done remarkably well," he shared with the recipients.

Minister Reddy also encouraged the recipients to continue to grow and contribute effectively to the economy through this new juncture in their lives, through their respective agricultural ventures.

He also elaborated that the Ministry would engage more closely with players in the tourism sector to ensure that hotels and resorts sourced more locally grown food as a substitute to imported fruits and vegetables to help reduce Fiji's import bill.

The B2RA start-up package, worth $400 includes one farm knife, a digging fork, one digging spade, a 20L water bucket, one Jerry Can (Water Can), an axe, one 50 meter rope, a tarpaulin set, one set of shade cloth, and $100 worth of planting material and $50 cash which the farmer can spend at his/her discretion.

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