Batiri citrus juice flows

AT about 11am today 42 years ago, then prime minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara pressed a button in a fruit processing factory in Vanua Levu, and the nation “moved to the threshold of a new era in agriculture.”

The Fiji Times on Wednesday March 3, 1982 reported on the new Batiri citrus factory’s official start of commercial production.

About thirty-five thousand Valencia oranges began their move through an extraction plant.

Two hours later Fiji’s first batch of pure orange juice was ready for the local market, and Fiji Citrus Products Limited was officially in business.

The company, a partnership between Government and commerce, was set to create a multi-milliondollar citrus industry. It already has 176 hectares of orchards with about 60,000 orange trees, and was studying prospects for processing lemons, limes and guavas.

The first commercial harvest was estimated to produce about 60,000 litres of orange juice, the bulk of it for local consumption.

Managing director Reg Woodman said peak production of three million litres of orange juice annually would be achieved by 1990, earning revenue of $1.2 million.

“The origins of the venture go back to 1977,” the article noted, “when the prime minister, during a visit to the Northern Division, observed that citrus fruits grew well in the north. But, without a properly organised market, the fruit often lay rotting on the ground.”

Ratu Sir Kamisese suggested positive moves be made to promote a citrus industry in the area and an in-depth study of potential locations was conducted and finally Batiri, 54 kilometres west of Labasa, was selected.

The Commonwealth Development Corporation, “a British institution specialising in investing in the Third World”, accepted an invitation to help finance the venture. The Fiji Development Bank expressed support as well.

In January 1979 Fiji Citrus Products was formed, with the National Marketing Authority attaining the main shareholding, through the Ministry of Agriculture.

The Batiri complex was completed by the end of 1980 at a cost of $1,640,000.

On this day over four decades ago, the late Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara toured and officially opened the orchard.