IN the 1970s, Bali Karan and his brother Jai were made news after they made a great success out of dalo farming on their 16 acres of Crown land in Muaniweni in Naitasiri.
This was reported in The Fiji Times on Monday, November 9, 1976.
The brothers planted dalo as their main crop, as well as cash crops, such as beans, bhindi, corn and kumala.
They also kept a few cattle and sold all their crops at the Suva Market or National Marketing Authority.
The family grew sugarcane when the Nausori mill was in operation. Like many others, the brothers recalled that they were constantly in serious debt to moneylenders and shopkeepers.
They said this was due in part to the seasonal nature of the sugarcane as a crop, which brought in income only at long intervals.
When the sugar mill closed in 1958, farmers in the area had to learn how to farm other crops.
Most were in financial difficulty for a long time until they succeeded with other crops.
Credit facilities were no longer available because most moneylenders gave credit on standing crop only.
But in the 1970s things slowly changed for the better. Most of the farmers in Muaniweni farmed commercially. They learned to budget so that they could get out of financial problems.
