Picture: Hon. Dr Mahendra Reddy with Naidiri Farmers Cluster in Korolevu settlement while handing over the portable rice mill.

There are numerous challenges faced by farmers in the country but despite it, farmers continuously rise up to meet the demands of the market.

While handing over a portable rice mill to Naidiri Farmers Cluster in Korolevu settlement and handing over small nursery packages to one successful recipient and two other clusters (Uluvatu Cluster and Wild West Cluster) as part of efforts to strengthen food security, the Minister for Agriculture, Waterways and Environment Hon. Dr. Mahendra Reddy acknowledged the contributions of local farmers.

“Farmers have been continuously challenged and they've risen up to these challenges. We want to make sure that in Fiji, we will not have any issues with our food security and the expectations are on our farmers and I have no doubt that farmers will once again rise up to the challenge,” said Hon. Reddy.

He highlighted that in the Northern Division, which was renowned for rice production, this year the amount of rice produced in the North was more than what was produced last year.

"Production of rice grew from 6,500metric tonnes in 2019 to 10,300metric tonnes in 2021 at an average rate of 11.1%. In this decade (2011-2021), this is the first time that the sector has achieved over 10,000metric tonnes in production of local rice.

"Despite increasing imports due to demand by increasing population, Fiji’s self-sufficiency level on rice has increased from 15% in 2019 to 17.5% in 2021," said Minister Reddy.

“Our hard work and our efforts over these last three years are now reaping rewards. We have been promoting rice throughout Fiji – the short-term variety of rice and we want our farmers to ensure that they fulfil our basic food requirements that is dalo, cassava, rice and vegetables.”

“If we are able to secure this, food insecurity will not be an issue; the rest are just a top up – poultry, high valued crops and livestock, these are top ups. The basic food requirement - dalo, cassava, rice and dhal, we need to ensure that we have enough and that is what we are doing,” Hon. Reddy added.

Meanwhile, Mr. Saijat Ali Khan the President of Naidiri Rice Cluster of Korolevu settlement thanked the Ministry of Agriculture for their support to farmers.

“This is the first time we received this kind of assistance from the Ministry of Agriculture; we are also thankful to the locality staff looking after us for sharing technical knowledge with us. We never knew about all these things and we are thankful indeed to receive the assistance,” said Mr. Khan.

The nursery package for individual farmers included 1x25 meter shylon cloth (nylon nursery shade cloth), 1 digging fork, 1 seedling tray, 1 jerry can and 1 cane knife. For farm groups they were given 1x50 meter shylon cloth, 10 digging forks, 10 cane knives, 10 jerry cans and 10 seedling trays.

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