All sugarcane and vegetable farmers nationwide are being urged to help reduce the country’s rice import bill by allocating at least one acre of their land to plant rice.
This was the call made by Minister for Agriculture, Waterways and Environment, Dr Mahendra Reddy while handing over a portable rice mill each to two rice farming clusters in Rewasa, Rakiraki and Benai, Ba on the outskirts of Koronubu this week.
Minister Reddy stressed the value of Fiji’s rice import bill was staggeringly high, standing at $41million, with farmers having the opportunity to contribute towards increasing Fiji’s foreign reserves by growing rice for their consumption, or as a cash crop.
“Since this is a sugarcane growing area, it would be best if every farmer allocated one acre of land to grow rice," he said.
"At the moment, we are importing $41million worth of rice, mostly from Vietnam. Eighty-four per cent of rice is imported and we are only producing 16 per cent of it in Fiji, and I see no reason why we cannot reverse this figure and produce 84 per cent here and import the remaining."
Minister Reddy talked about past Government initiatives that were implemented to increase rice production, like irrigation schemes, which were now too costly to maintain along with rice schemes that had eventually failed due to dwindling farmer participation and declining rice cultivation.
"In this case, we have decided to promote the rain-fed and the 100-day short-term varieties of rice, not the long-term varieties, and if anyone wants to grow the traditional variety, they should do so at their own expense, as the harvester cannot handle the large rice plants,” Minister Reddy said.
"We’re very pleased to see rice expanding in Rakiraki and Ba - they have taken the lead - and as a Ministry, we want to thank you all. We’ve made substantial gain as the Government is concerned about two things; food security and the amount of money being drained outside of the country due to rice imports."
Minister Reddy has also encouraged all communities to set up communal rice plots and is urging all farmers to set aside land to plant rice in the hopes of greatly reducing current rice import bills and achieving self-sufficiency in rice production.
Benai Rice Farmers’ Cluster representative, Rajeshwar Singh, said all the farmers within the area would benefit from the portable rice mill assistance.
"I want to thank Minister Reddy, Assistant Minister, Viam Pillay, and the agriculture staff for continuing to support all farmers, we are all very proud to receive this portable rice mill and I do believe that each and every farmer, that is part of our rice cluster in Benai, will benefit from it."