Restoring degraded agricultural land to enable sustained production through organic practices to ensure healthy crops and food is a priority for the Ministry of Agriculture.

This was reiterated by Minister for Agriculture, Waterways and Environment Hon. Dr. Mahendra Reddy while launching the formulation and distribution of compost at Nabukadra Village in Nakorotubu, Ra recently.

"The Ministry will continue to work on composting of locally available materials and provide these to villages and settlements in the interior and coastal areas and to continue to encourage farmers to venture into organic agriculture.

"Farmers in most parts of the country are being urged to revise their farming practices and progressively implement more environmentally friendly and organic farming practices.

"Organic agriculture has been continuously promoted by the Ministry over the years which has led to the establishment of new initiatives such as banning of weedicides, setting up of compost sites and production of bacterium culture.

Minister Reddy also made reference to the preferential market that existed for fresh Fijian organic-branded agricultural produce in particular turmeric, which had surpassed the export earnings of ginger as he called on farmers to move towards more organic farming to nurture and exploit the export market where organic produce fetched better prices.

Minister Reddy also elaborated that the Ministry had developed a local liquid organic fertilizer, Bacterium Culture, that could be applied directly to their farms or can assist in composting and later applied to their farms.

"In 2021, a total of 33 communities have been supplied with 100 tons of finished compost during the Covid-19 lockdown period to assist them with the production of crops for food security," said Minister Reddy.

"The Ministry is also providing Bacterium Culture and has distributed more than 11,000 litres to farmers. A total of 24 bacterium tanks and almost all of the Agriculture stations in the Central and Western Divisions have received and installed their 500litre tanks to supply Bacterium Culture free of charge to our farmers, while 10 x 200L drums have been installed at Nakorotubu District to support clusters working on Organic Agriculture.

It is envisaged that the formulation and distribution of compost throughout Fiji, will guarantee better soils for a better life and future.

Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems, and people as it relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects. The Ministry of Agriculture is actively promoting its Organic Initiative, the main objective of which was to reduce the consumption of synthetic or chemical fertilizers in Fiji.

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