The agriculture sector needs farmers who envision commercial success and have ambitious farming aspirations to further the sector.
This was reiterated by Minister for Agriculture Hon. Dr Mahendra Reddy while addressing 23 graduating students of Navuso Agricultural Technical Institute yesterday after a one-day training workshop which was part of the Young Farmers Incubation Scheme.
Minister Reddy highlighted the need for able-bodied and knowledgeable commercial oriented farmers within the sector.
The one-day ‘Training of Future Commercial & Replacement Farmers’ workshop underlined the importance of farming on a large-scale basis to the students, as they were earmarked as the pioneering class of Navuso students to be ambassadors of one of the Ministry’s five initiatives announced earlier this year.
“We see 23 young, educated commercial agriculture farmers that will help the Ministry of Agriculture in taking agriculture to another level but in order to do this, you must think big,” Minister Reddy said.
Assurances were also given to the students that markets for their crops would be provided, so long as they planted according to market demands and produced crops such as yaqona, dalo, cassava, yam, duruka, bongo chillies, and rice.
“Those who are interested in venturing into livestock farming should start with few cattle, goats or sheep. Only once you have 10 or more than the Ministry will you provide with fencing materials,” Minister Reddy added.
He also advised these young farmers to be responsible and to reinvest profits into their farms to increase production levels as they would be monitored by the agriculture officers in the locality assigned to them to gauge their performance.
“We’re very excited that you will become our ambassadors. Anytime we come around to your respective areas, we will visit you and you will also be invited to attend our forums. We take great pride in this initiative because your success will add value to agriculture growth and development, all of which the Government is actively pursuing,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Head of Navuso Agricultural Technical Institute Mr Uraia Waibuta acknowledged Government’s funding towards the institute which ensured these young farmer trainees become the first to graduate with an additional package.
“The students are fully trained to become good replacement commercial farmers for Fiji,” said Mr Waibuta.
These students will be the first batch to work with the Ministry of Agriculture, whereby initial agricultural assistance will be provided to them to start up their farms, with guidance and technical advice to be provided by the Ministry’s locality officer assigned to each individual farmer.
During the first year, these young farmers will be assisted with land preparation and planting materials.
As part of the partnership, these farmers are required to supply planting materials in return to the Ministry within five years so as to assist other upcoming young farmers.