Fiji now has 982 sheep farmers who have a total of 32,061 sheep in stock, said Minister for Agriculture Dr Mahendra Reddy.
He said the numbers had gone up when compared with 2019 when there were 818 farmers with 30,000 sheep in stock.
“From 2019 we had an average growth of around 3 per cent,” said Dr Reddy while handing over 61 pairs of F1 sheep breed to sheep farmers in Nadi.
This is part of ongoing efforts to improve the genetic makeup on sheep farms in the country.
“We are spending $48 million annually on the importation of 4206 tonnes of lamb meat, 98 per cent of all the lamb meat consumed in Fiji while 2 per cent is what we are producing so there is enormous scope to raise production,” he said.
“Fiji’s current formal production of sheep meat stands at 3.64 tonnes/year while around 1.3 tonnes are from the informal market.”
