Suva market crippled by boycott

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IMAGINE the chaos that would be created if municipal markets had no food to sell. There’d be no root crops, vegetables and fruit to buy and cook at home.

In March 1974, that was a worry when more than 300 farmers refused to offer their vegetables and fruits for sale at the Suva market. This was reported in The Fiji Times on Saturday, March 30, 1974.

The boycott was in protest against a Suva City Council decision not to allow them to sell their own produce outside the market anymore.

As a result the Central Farmers’ Association also stopped supplying produce to market vendors.

At least 160 stalls were left vacant inside the market when curio vendors cleared their tables for the farmers

The president of the farmers’ association, Moti Ram, said the council had forced them into the boycott.

He said vendors had been selling produce outside the market for the past 10 years.

“We are prepared to sell on tables inside the market, but these are all reserved for curio vendors,” he said.

This was apart from Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings when there was no cruise ship in port.

The market master, William Mar, said: “By boycotting the market, they (the farmers) are on the losing side, seeing that their livelihoods depend on the produce they sell.”

The mayor of Suva, Cr Isireli Vuibau, said the area set aside for a car park should not be used for anything else.

Cr Vuibau added that farmers had been given the alternative of using the Raiwaqa market, which was built to stop congestion at the Suva Market.

“Rate payers spend $21,000 a year to maintain the Raiwaqa market, which is losing over $16,000 annually,” he said.

Mr Ram said about 140 farmers had tried selling at Raiwaqa last year, but the venture failed because of transport problems.

The farmers decided at a meeting to continue the boycott indefinitely. The council’s decision to ban sales of produce outside the market would cost $24,00 a year in lost stall revenue, according to an estimate by the market master at the council’s monthly meeting.

The council had agreed to spend $1000 on a publicity drive to get more people to use the Raiwaqa market.