Sugar Research Institute of Fiji (SRIF) needs larger molecular laboratories to complement its research work, said its CEO Dr Vinesh Kumar.
He made the comments while meeting the High Commissioner of India to Fiji, Shri Palaniswamy Subramanyan Karthigeyan at the SRIF head office last week.
“One of the biggest challenges that we are experiencing is that there is lot of unapproved variety of cane in the Northern Division,” Mr Kumar said.
“We have lot of mixed variety of cane and we want to extract the Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA).”
The Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme head of department crop protection Dr Geetha Nandagopal has been with SRIF for two years.
“SRIF values the work done by Dr Geetha as she was able to work with local scientists and assist in times of disease identification and control.”
Dr Kumar said SRIF had enough technology, and varieties of cane to sustain the industry.
“However, the other challenge was to have farmers learn to adopt to it.”
