MINISTER REDDY'S STATEMENT AT THE NEW COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE VENTURE IN NARORO, SIGATOKA

Our investor, Mr. Suren Kumar, Jiten Kumar and Jai Kumar;
Farmers from Naroro and nearby settlements,
Ministry of Agriculture staff,
Ladies and gentlemen.
 
Bula vinaka to you all.
It’s a pleasure to be here to announce the launching of yet another large scale commercial agricultural venture here in Sigatoka.
 
As you all may be aware, we are mandated to grow agriculture in national interest. Growing agriculture in national interest will serve a number of purposes:
 
It will bring in the much needed foreign exchange via export of both primary commodities as well as processed products.
It will allows us to engage our labourers into meaningful and rewarding enterprises;
It will draw in and attract idle fertile land into productive use thus ensuring the owners of land get naximum returns;
It will provide source of livelihood for the rural dwellers; and,
It will assist us in meeting our food and nutritional security objective.
 
Now, the old model of large number of small holder farms are no longer workable.

Primarily because we no longer have large family size for free labour. Large scale production requires move towards mechanized agriculture. Our requirements from competitive markets necessitates consistency in supply, uniform product quality and competitive price. All these may not be possible via small scale semi subsistence and small scale commercial farms.
 
We now have to re-orient our farming system, move towards mechanization and large holdings.

We need to study the market opportunities for crop types and livestock demands.

We need to have alternative plans to deal with bio security issues such as value adding and product development.

We need to have large holdings which will allow minimization of unit costs of production, advantage over sourcing of raw materials, large scale production, control over timing and volume of supply and uniformity in product quality.
 
It is in this regard that we wish to welcome large scale investors into the agriculture sector given some of the strategic advantages we have:
 
We have one of the most fertile land suitable for crop agriculture;
We have abundance of water available at no costs for agricultural use;
Our climatic conditions give us the strategic advantage for year round production;
Our pristine endowment gives us a leverage to go into organic farming.
 
It is in this regard that we wish to welcome this commercial venture led by Mr. Suren Kumar, originally from here in Naroro Sigatoka who now resides in Sydney Australia.
 
I am pleased to note that Mr. Kumar along with his local partners, Mr. Jiten Kumar and Mr. Jai Kumar is venturing into large scale goat and sheep farming as well as high valued crops.
 
Amongst the crops, they will plant:
The two varieties of Daruka;
Lemon plants – 5,000 units
Grafted lime plants - 5,000 units
Grafted Hass Avocado plants – 5,000 units
Hybrid Coconut, 5000 plants.
 
We will develop a plan to supply them with the seedlings on a monthly basis. This staggered approach will give them time to prepare their land as well as acquire new land.

They have also began Dalo farming in Tailevu and will be establishing 100 acres of Dalo over the next 12 months with the first 12 acres almost complete.
Given the scale of the project, it will take them at least 5 years to fully establish the commercial venture. I am pleased to note that they have already invested in acquiring basic machinery set for farm land preparation, have established a processing and packaging house.

I wish to assure Mr. Kumar and his partners that we will do all we can to ensure that this venture is successful and becomes a model venture for other commercial farms.

I wish to take this opportunity to extend an invitation to other potential investors to establish their operational office here in Fiji and vertically intergrate with farm level production activity so that they have full control over supply and quality and value add and export from Fiji.
With these words, its my pleasure to officially commission this project and I look forward to its expansion and development for Fiji’s benefit.
 
God bless you all, and Vinaka Vakalevu.