The Ministry of Agriculture officially launched its Rice Expansion Initiative and has reintroduced rice cultivation for sugarcane growers around Fiji.

While announcing the initiative at the Sugar Research Institute in Drasa, Lautoka today, Minister for Agriculture Hon. Dr. Mahendra Reddy rationalized the program as being one that would ensure Fiji gradually achieves self –sufficiency in rice production.

He highlighted that under this initiative, each sugarcane farmer was encouraged to plant at least one acre of rice, as the Ministry would provide them with seeds of improved high yielding varieties that could be grown under rainfed climatic conditions.  

Minister Reddy elaborated that the Ministry would provide 30 kilograms of rice seeds at no cost to every sugarcane farmer.

“We want each sugarcane farmer to plant rice as a supplementary and complementary crop; it could supplement your food and income security, it has also proven to be a good complementary crop rotation with sugarcane.”

He added that about 8,000 metric tonnes of rice was produced and consumed locally.

“We have achieved around 66 percent self-sufficiency of rice production before and this can be done again as the agro-climatic conditions in Fiji are exceptionally favourable for rice cultivation,” he said.

Hon. Reddy said we have around 7000 acres of land under rice cultivation and to achieve self-sufficiency, a total of 24,000 acres of land with 2 crops per year was needed.

“In 2019, Fiji imported $42.6m worth of rice into Fiji, and that is equivalent to around 40,000 metric tonnes of rice.

“Cultivation of rice is not new to the cane farming communities as historically every farming entity, especially sugarcane farming households were self-sufficient,” said Hon. Reddy. 

Meanwhile, five tonnes of star variety seeds were also handed to 166 sugarcane farmers today to help initiate their rice farming.

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