Picture: Minister for Agriculture Hon. Dr Mahendra Reddy planting a tree to commemorate World Soil Day.

Fiji commemorated World Soil Day in solidarity with the international community as a means of focusing the public’s attention on the importance of healthy soils and advocating for the sustainable management of soil resources.

While speaking during the commemorative event yesterday at the Ministry of Agriculture’s Legalega Research Station, Minister for Agriculture, Waterways and Environment Hon. Dr. Mahendra Reddy said that too often, we had forgotten that the foundation of agriculture was healthy soils, a natural but limited resource that was always taken for granted.

“An international day to celebrate Soil was recommended by the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) in 2002, and within the framework of the Global Soil Partnership, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has supported the formal establishment of World Soil Day as a global awareness-raising platform.

Minister Reddy also called on all Fijians to be responsible citizens and to refrain from unnecessary littering as it had a negative impact on the soil status.

“When it comes to safeguarding our resources, these little acts and issues such as littering must be recognized as having an impact and we must have a national movement, a national discourse to address this issue,” said Hon. Reddy.

He said that the continued unsustainable practices that exploited and deteriorated the health of soils on a daily basis were a cause for concern as there was a declining application of sustainable land resource management and agriculture practices to support growth in related primary industries.

“As we all gather here at Legalega Research Station to mark World Soil Day 2021; I would like to bring your attention to this year’s Theme “Halt Soil Salinization, and Boost Productivity”.

“This year’s theme brings to the forefront one of the very important concerns to dwell on since the lack of proper soil management practices has led to a decline in Fiji’s soil fertility, further exacerbating salinization instead of halting it,” he said.

Minister Reddy said the Ministry of Agriculture had established a number of strategies to combat these issues, exercising a string of good practices to Halt Soil Salinization and Boost Soil Productivity such as the Crop Research Division continuous research and development on crop varietal improvement program, practising haplotype agriculture that is resilient, saline and drought-tolerant, for crops such as Dalo Via, New Sweet Potato and New rice.

“We've recently employed the Soil Health Card Initiative; to ensure farmers keep track of the soil fertility on their farms, and to engage them to improve soil quality through the use of organic fertilisers and farming practices,” he added.

Additionally, the Ministry has distributed Organic compost to various farming communities, establishing 25 organic compost sites in the Central Division and 15 sites in the Western Division.

“Through research, we've also developed and established Bacterium-culture to assist farmers to make their own compost in the shortest time possible. A number of Bacterium-culture sites have been installed in strategic locations for ease of access to our farmers. So far the Ministry has installed - 6 tanks in the Central Division, 12 in the West and 5 in Vanua Levu.

“It is critical that we work with the farmers to protect and carefully manage one of our most valuable resources,” he stressed. 

“The Government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, is investing in Research & Development, particularly for evaluating tolerant crop varieties and encouraging and promoting the use of sustainable farming systems with the Fiji Sustainable Land Management project to reduce soil degradation, Halt Soil Salinization and Boost Soil Productivity.

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