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

Introducing new technologies that can mitigate extreme weather conditions and help to grow temperate crops all year round is part of the Ministry of Agriculture’s long-term plan to meet consumer and market demands.

In an attempt to ensure off-season vegetable production is kept at a minimum, which usually occurs in the rainy months, typically between October to March, when vegetable production is curtailed by heavy rainfalls, high temperatures and humidity, the Ministry of Agriculture has strengthened its ‘Protected Agriculture’ and ‘Supported Agriculture’ programme assistance materials to help extend periods of production at on-site farms.

While handing out irrigation kits to successful recipients at Legalega in Nadi yesterday, Minister for Agriculture, Waterways and Environment Hon. Dr. Mahendra Reddy said one of the Ministry’s goals was to prevent the hiking prices of certain high value and temperate vegetables such as tomatoes, English cabbage, French bean, lettuce etc. in local municipal markets. 

“In this journey, we are providing to successful farmers, protected agriculture equipment such as greenhouse or nursery and today, we are providing you equipment under the category called supported agriculture, which is the irrigation facility.

“The Protected Agriculture and Supported Agriculture materials will extend the periods of production into periods where it would’ve been otherwise difficult for you to produce, for example, during the dry season, you can have hydroponics or greenhouse to produce continuously so when you do that, then supply will be there in the market and prices won’t go up.

Minister Reddy referred to the seasons (high rainfall, humidity and temperature) that weren’t conducive to the growth of temperate crops such as tomatoes, English cabbage etc. saying that this was when these vegetables were sold at hefty prices, often termed as its off-season but that through Protected Agriculture and Supported Agriculture, the Ministry envisaged a year-round crop seasonality to continue to meet the demands of local households and markets.  

“We want there to be no off-seasons where there is a shortage in supply and prices shoot up, so we are going to support farmers who are full-time and dedicated so we can push production up during these off-seasons so that we can normalize the prices and our consumers, our urban households, in particular, do not find it difficult to survive or don’t have to dig deeper into their pockets and reduce their savings and push that money to buy the same bundle of commodities which they would’ve bought before at a cheaper price,” said Minister Reddy.

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