Picture: Naruwai villagers during the talanoa session.

The Ministry of Agriculture will revive the Naruwai Rice Irrigation Scheme this fiscal year following further discussions with the villagers of Naruwai Village in Bua to establish precise rice development plans for the area.

This comes after the Hon. Dr. Mahendra Reddy, Minister for Agriculture, paid a consultative visit to the Northern Division recently. During that visit, he met with village residents, discussed their plans for development, and provided assurances that the once-vibrant rice scheme in Naruwai would be revived.

During the consultation, the residents of Naruwai expressed their desire to resume rice farming and requested Minister Reddy to assist them in reviving their formerly thriving industry. The residents also asked for government assistance to fix the irrigation system.

In response to their request, Minister Reddy hoped the villagers would agree to resume rice farming on a commercial scale in order to ensure a return on investment.

"I want assurances about your irrigation dam, as well as an estimate of how much rice you will produce and how many people will be engaged in rice production. My staff will come down and discuss the projections with you regarding the amount of rice you believe you can produce and the area of land you will bring under production if I get some more information.

"I'm looking forward to my agriculture staff traveling down and completing a proper paper on how much land you want to plant with rice," said Hon. Reddy. "We're happy to invest on the dam and ensure that the entire irrigation facility is functioning in this financial year," he added.

He added that the Ministry was promoting the short-term variety of rice rather than the conventional rice varieties that Naruwai farmers were used to planting.

"Once the irrigation facility is fixed, I advise you to try with the Star, Bold Grain, Cagivou, or Sitara varieties, as we are currently promoting the 3- to 4-month variety of rice rather than the 6-month variety. These four varieties are the ones we are promoting; they are high yielding, short-term varieties, and don't need a lot of irrigation," he said.

Hon. Reddy also mentioned that once they had resumed planting rice, the Ministry would give them a portable rice mill so they could mill their own rice.

There are currently 200 households in Naruwai Village, and in 1972, rice farming was practiced there on a large scale, with the farmers working long hours to support their families. Due to a number of factors, the project failed after 15 years of implementation, and since the irrigation system was shut down in 1987, the villagers have been unable to grow rice.

Nevertheless, these farmers are steadfast in their belief that they can revive the crop and help the government lower the cost of the nation's rice imports. With the government's assistance in enhancing the irrigation system, the villagers still want to cultivate the land, which totals 60 hectares and could be used for rice farming. 

-Ends-

• ← Go to all Press Releases