Land reforms undertaken by the Ministry of Lands dominated the discussions conducted by the Strategic Framework for Change Coordinating Office in Nadroga last week.
SFCCO Officer, Joeli Besetimoala during a visit to the area encouraged the community there, especially the youths to better utilise their lands as a source of daily sustenance and ultimate economic wellbeing.
“You are encouraged to give in your unutilised land to the Land Bank so that it can be lease for productive use to benefit you the landowner and Government as a whole,” he said.
Mr Besetimoala told the youths of Nadroga that most land have been idle and unutilised for years.
“Landowners are being brainwashed by the notion that these idle lands should be left untouched for our future generation. Why don’t we commercially cultivate them or lease them for our future generation instead,” Besetimoala said.
Mr Besetimoala challenged them on the notion that landowners are well known to be poorest people in the world.
“The notion of the poor landowners is a challenge for us all but merely because we do not prioritise commercial farming and that is why most of our lands are unutilised.
“We need to break this trend,” he said.