MORE than 70 farmers learnt about new resilient varieties and cultivation techniques of vegetables at a field day at the Taiwan Technical Mission’s (TTM), part of the mission’s Resilient Cultivation Extension Project.
The project aims to equip farmers with the knowledge and technical know-how of cultivating new varieties of vegetables to ensure consistent production throughout the year despite the ever-changing climatic factors.
The field day last Thursday at the TTM’s demo farm at Bau Rd outside Nausori focused largely on learning the resilient varieties and cultivation methods of English Cabbage in particular, but also explored similar practices for other vegetables like tomatoes and melons.
“Today we briefed farmers on the methods we use and the varieties of English Cabbage suitable for Fijian farmers to grow, especially during the rainy season,” Taiwan Technical Mission Fiji specialist Edward Chen said in an interview.
“We all know that now is the season for English Cabbage and the market is flooded with it. But when it comes to November and December, that is the time we can have some more income by using the new method of growing English Cabbage that can ensure we can still harvest during off-season with the new varieties and cultivation methods,” he said.
Mr Chen said they were introducing three new varieties of English Cabbage from Taiwan to farmers in Fiji.
The varieties 228, 493 and 2 are being trialed at the Taiwan Technical Mission demo farm and the seeds have yet to be released locally.
“These are Biosecurity of Fiji approved varieties and we imported them a couple of months ago.”
Mr Chen said they had arranged for a trip to Taiwan with some stakeholders and were finalising application procedures with biosecurity.
“We hope by the end of this year or next year, we can try to release the seeds to the local company and then the farmers can go buy their own from there.”
He said the new varieties could significantly boost the production of English Cabbage in the country and farmers could also continue revenue generation even during the off-season.
“In this project, we are trying to reduce the production loss from climate change, so we’re expecting that after this project, we can achieve this goal.”
The Resilient Cultivation Extension is a five-year project with the focus on a different crop each year.
English Cabbage is the focus of the resilient cultivation project this year.
“In the second year, we will be introducing the new variety and the new method of growing tomatoes,” Mr Chen said.
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Note: This article was first published under the headline: Farmers learn of new resilient vegetable varieties in Page 13 of the print version of The Fiji Times dated Monday, September 29, 2025
