PRASHILA DEVI
Fijians living abroad are interested to invest in Fiji’s agricultural sector with the emphasis placed on commercial farming.
This was conveyed by the Attorney-General and Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum after a recent trip to New Zealand where he met with many former Fijians residing there but keen on investing in Fiji.
“Interestingly enough, a number of these people want to invest in agricultural sector, they believe that large scale commercial farming is the way to go, that’s precisely what the Government believes,” the A-G said.
“Just to give you an example, we don’t have a breadfruit orchard in Fiji, so there’s no breadfruit farm- they grow everywhere. Similarly there’s no kavika (java apple) or vudi farm, there are many local fruits that grow wild and are seasonal but we don’t necessarily have orchards for that.”
The A-G, while launching Solis Tractors in Fiji which will be distributed by Car Mart Pte Limited in Waila, Nausori, said there are enormous commercial and financial opportunities for those people who are interested in farming and availing land for farming.
He said in order to get into large scale farming, mechanisation was the way forward as the days of getting people to manually do chores is no longer feasible hence the availability of more brand of tractors gives the farmers the ability to choose.
“Competition is very good for the economy. Unfortunately for a number of years there was only one brand of tractors despite the duty free provision. Now we have three or four brands available in the market which gives farmers the ability to choose.”
The owner of Car Mart, Rakesh Kumar said they will be happy to work with Ministry of Agriculture in hiring out tractors to help the farmers.