Work hard and smart: farmer
“IAM a fourth-generation business owner thanks to my great grandfather who started Prasad’s Dairy during the Girmit days. This was relayed by a Government grant recipient, Vijen Maharaj, who explained that his great grandfather was a Brahman Pandit (priest) and he used to get cattle in return for doing prayer for people.
“It continued this way and my grandfather started milking the cows to supply it to people,” he relayed.
“I joined my father in this business in the year 1990 when we decided to expand the business and we have come so far,” he said.
“Situated in Nabilo, Namalata in Tailevu, we have a land mass of 100 acres, therefore, we don’t have much cattle
and can only have about 250 in the herd.” “The advantage of our farm is that our average milk is very high and we use the milking machine and chill the milk at the farm before it goes to Fiji Dairy Limited (FDL),” he added.
Mr Maharaj was assisted in 2016 by the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) through the Ministry’s Dairy Industry Support program with a farm shed, feed for the cattle and tuberculosis vaccination for the herd.
He shared that there are only two farms which directly supply milk to FDL and one of them was his farm. “We have the Fiji breed cattle “Friesian” and our dairy shed is in the centre of the land which is flat so the cattle don’t exert themselves while out on the field in comparison to moving around on rocky terrain,” he said.
“There are four of us working full time at the farm and my family also assists me. Through this farm I started a digger company in 2009 which is operating from Tailevu and in 2018 I made a complex centre near Tailevu town called Northland Plaza where 11 types of business operate from.”
“I get 12-litres of milk from each cow and altogether 1000-litres of milk from milking 80 cows every day,” Mr Maharaj added. He states that his only rule in life is “to work hard and work smart” where he can have less expenses and generate more income from his middle-class farm.
“The major challenge faced by farmers usually is land and labour issues and even though we work closely with the Ministry of Agriculture, they don’t have enough materials to be able to help farmers expand their farms,” he highlighted. “Fiji will have to make a long journey to be fully self-sufficient in the dairy sector as we have a huge market for milk and whoever comes on board this business will not run a loss,” he added.