Government focuses on developing fruit orchards
IN the past five years, Fiji has exported $1.36 million worth of fruits to other countries which amounted to 350,000 metric tonnes.
Minister for Agriculture, Rural and Maritime Development, Waterways and Environment Dr Mahendra Reddy said this in Parliament last week.
“Similarly, annually, using the last five-year data, on an average we are importing $16.3m worth of fruits to Fiji. This is 5.5 metric tonnes every year,” he said.
“Interestingly, if I use the statistics, you will see that our export value per metric tonne is $3.9m whereas import value per metric tonne is $2.9m.”
Dr Reddy added that the fruits the country was exporting were preferred by the public as they were willing to pay more while the fruits which were being imported per metric tonne or per kilogram was lower in terms of the unit value.
There is a lot of potential in this area, as according to the minister if the country is able to grow 5.5 metric tonnes of these fruits every year it will be able to save $16.3m.
“How can we do that? Not these small, small backyard fruits that we got. That is all right for home nutritional security, for local nutritional security.
“We need to exploit the market out here in our own back yard, the tourism sector, restaurants and the university hostels where massive amounts of fruits are purchased every day.”
He said there were already works being carried out to establish fruit tree orchards with this business prospect.
“We have established six guava (green pearl variety) orchards, so 100 plants in each orchard in the Western Division.
“There are now, at the moment, six established guava orchards.
“Last year, we established eight avocado orchards in the Western Division, for each orchard — 50 plants each.
“We have established one breadfruit orchard in Sigatoka — 100 plants, one orchard.”
Government’s target is to establish 40 orchards for avocado, guava, mango, breadfruit, baigan (eggplant) every year.
“These are first-phase fruit tree orchards that we want to establish.
“This is what is envisaged for the next three years, 120 orchards we want to have over the three-year period.”
He added they were organising the research stations where the nurseries were being established along with carting materials, seedlings and case seeds while other places had replanting materials.
“It is not something that you can do overnight because you need to establish the number of seedlings.
“We are looking at establishing six dragon-fruit orchards over the next six-month period, 60 per cent of the work has been done on the dragon-fruit orchard.”