Non-sugar agriculture remains a viable option for sugarcane farmers as opportunities exists within the sector to provide for farmers' livelihoods and contribute to their income generation capabilities as farmers. 

This was highlighted by the Minister for Agriculture, Rural and Maritime Development, Waterways and Environment Hon. Dr Mahendra Reddy during talanoa sessions with farmers of Ellington and Naria, in Ra yesterday.

“Today’s visit is basically to bring to your attention the opportunities that we have in agriculture and how you can live in terms of improving your livelihood.” 

Minister Reddy said that even though these areas were traditionally sugarcane growing areas with Government placing a lot of emphasis on supporting the sugar industry, farmers were welcome to explore other agriculture based ventures to complement their traditional sources of revenue.

“Sugarcane has been a very important product for us, and the industry has played an important role in Fiji’s economy, particularly bringing in foreign exchange and currency.”

While supporting the sugar industry, he also urged farmers to explore non-sugar agriculture commodities such as kava, rice, vegetables, and livestock rearing.

“We are also promoting non-sugar agriculture, which plays an important role in our economy, similarly in export creation and promotion which brings in export currency, national economic growth and sustainable livelihood development," Minister Reddy said.

He also highlighted that seeing as kava was now a huge income generating crop, the Ministry of Agriculture would soon be announcing the restructure of its Research Stations, whereby a station would be dedicated solely to conducting research on kava. 

“The Ministry is planning to expand kava growth and production outside the traditional kava growing areas such as Taveuni, Kadavu, Naitasiri, Vanua Levu and Lomaiviti.

The Ministry wants to spread kava outside these traditional areas and to do that we have to establish the infrastructure in the Western Division, we want to expand kava here,” Minister Reddy said.

He emphasized that the onus remained with farmers to take full advantage of these opportunities, by maintaining consistent and quality supply and to treat agriculture as a commercial venture in order to target export markets.

-ENDS-

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