VILIAME TIKOTANI
Women are not only good helpers to their husbands but are equally good in farming the land, says Torika Nasau of Burelevu in Ra.
Mrs Nasau, who is in her early sixties, is a vegetable farmer alongside her husband. She has made good use of their mataqali land planting vegetables, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, eggplant, pawpaw and pineapples.
The land which she has been toiling for the past 10 years was formerly a sugarcane farm and because of the changes and difficulties within the sugar sector, they had decided to switch to vegetable farming.
“I also reap a good harvest and also a good amount of financial return because these vegetables are good cash crops and are always in demand in the market,” Mrs Nasau said.
“I have been doing this for the past 10 years and it has helped my family financially.” Mrs Nasau is one of the successful agriculture farmers within the province of Ra and has been identified by the Ministry of Agriculture which had assisted her with machines and also manure and seedlings.
“I am thankful to Government for reaching out to the farmers and assisting them with new technology,” she said. “I also wish to extend my appreciation to them for assisting in setting markets for our crops.”
Mrs Nasau said women should not only limit themselves within their home and should branch out into farming if they have land. “In town and urban areas, life is very expensive and I have experienced it for myself and my family. I have five children and my husband and I spent seven years in Lautoka working and we found it hard due to high cost.”
“We returned to the village and started to use our land which was unused after sugarcane farming.” “Now we are doing well and we have a range of crops to plant and sell to the market and the Ministry officials assist us as well by providing us with a good market price.”