The signing this week of a Memorandum of Understanding at the Ministry of Agriculture will mark the establishment of a research institution with modern seed processing, testing, inspection, certification and storage system.
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forests, Rural and Maritime Development and National Disaster Management, Lt. Col Inia Seruiratu signed the MOU with the Chief Executive Officer of the China Business Centre Fiji Limited Mr. Ma Fei and the Managing Director for the Tian Feng Fu Dao Eco-Agriculture (Beijing) Ltd. Mr. Wang Feng from Beijing, People’s Republic of China.
The signing took place at the Ministry’s headquarters in Raiwaqa.
Mr Seruiratu said the Ministry of Agriculture recognizes the potential and opportunity that China Business Centre Ltd and Tian Feng Fu Dao Eco-Agriculture (Beijing) Ltd would provide to Fiji’s agricultural sector.
Fiji he said, currently imports around $36 million dollars’ worth of rice and spends approximately $40 million dollars on importing potatoes, garlic, carrots, tomatoes and capsicum.
“The economic growth that Fiji is experiencing now is largely driven by exports which continue to perform strongly. The value of Fijian food exports increased by an average of around 2.5% over the past 5 years which has reached FJ$600 in 2012.
“Therefore, the Fijian government aims to achieve import substitution of agricultural products while increasing the export at the same time. Agriculture in Fiji is a promising industry, given the rich water resources, fertile soils and annual high precipitation that Fiji receives,” he said.
The agriculture industry is a promising industry given the rich water resources fertile soils and annual high precipitation that Fiji receives. However, the Minister stated that some major difficulties faced by Fiji in excelling the agriculture industry include the seed variety problem with lower yields and quality, plant diseases, insect pests, small number of large-scale modernized farms and lack of mechanisation.
“There is a need to introduce science and technology to strengthen the seed production capacity and management in order to balance the up-stream to down-stream of the agriculture industry,” he said.
The signing of today’s MOU, this will further strengthen the scientific exchanges and technology with the establishment of a research institution with modern seed processing, testing, inspection, certification and storage system, conducting upstream activities on seed, agricultural materials, technology, processing, storage, sales by investment and development, improving efficiency of agricultural production in long-term plans, investments and establishment of the agriculture machinery services and establishing the facility of the processing of agricultural products such as rice, cassava starch, cassava ethanol processing projects.
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