Picture: Permanent Secretary for Agriculture Vinesh Kumar (4th from left) with the participants at Radisson Blu Resort.

Fiji annually imports around $20m of vegetables such as tomatoes, capsicum, cucumber, broccoli, cauliflower and lettuce, due to inconsistency in supply throughout the year.

The comments was made by Agriculture Permanent Secretary, Vinesh Kumar while opening the two-day training of trainers workshop on Protected Cropping for Ministry of Agriculture staffs at the Radisson Blu Resort, in Nadi yesterday.

“It contributes to an increase in imports of certain vegetables to service high end supermarkets and the hotel industry. All these vegetables can successfully grow in Fiji under protected cropping,” Kumar said. 

He explained protected cropping allowed production of crops under structures all-round the year which would otherwise could not be grown in open field. 

“Almost 90per cent of farmers in Fiji grow their crops in open field as a result face lot of difficulties in producing good quality crop during the rainy season.

“Protected cropping or plastic houses provides a great option for the farmers to adopt in order to improve their farm productivity through practicing all-round the year crop production system,” Kumar added.

He said the effective use of protective structures was well known worldwide as a production system for high quality vegetables production increased crop yield and quality by altering environmental factors such as light, temperature, air humidity, and wind and pest pressure. 

Further, the Permanent Secretary said advantages of using protected cropping were; an increase in crop yield, produce quality and revenue; high water productivity; significant reduction in use of pesticides; and year round production allowing farming to take advantage of market seasonality and higher prices.

“The training, which is for technical officers of the Ministry of Agriculture is an integral part of the work to improve knowledge and build internal capacity,” Kumar said.

“This training therefore is important and very timely to upskill our staff for them to hold hands with our farmers and working with them to ensure that the plastic houses are put to good use.”

The training was funded through the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).

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