A mixed crop farmer from Bua and a beef cattle farmer of Naitasiri were named winners of the 1983 National Farmer of the Year Competition.
The Fiji Times published an article on January 6, 1984, stating that Sunia Wasei of Nagadoa in Vuya, Bua, won the Best Crop Farmer of the Year Award, while Kiniviliame Ratila of Serea in Naitasiri was declared Best Livestock Farmer of the Year.
Competition organisers, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, also named Deo Sharma of Naceva Valley Rd in Sigatoka as 1983’s Bank of New Zealand Young Farmer of the Year.
The article stated the men would receive their prizes later that month.
Mr Wasei, 53, became the second farmer from the Northern Division to win the Crop Farmer of the Year award. Solomone Regu, of Vuna in Taveuni, was the first to win the award in 1981 when the competition began.
The article stated Mr Wasei was, for the previous 22 years, a full-time mixed crop farmer without any financial assistance.
He had a 10-hectare block of mataqali land where coconuts, cocoa, root crops, and about 10,000 full-grown pine trees were grown. He was assisted by his wife and 26-year-old son.
Mr Ratila, 62, had been a beef cattle farmer for 10 years and, apart from an initial Fiji Development Bank loan which he had since repaid fully, he was helped by his family on the farm.
The ministry decided to organise competitions at both divisional and national levels while preparations for the second national rice week began with committee officials and farmers working together on programs for the celebrations.
The idea for a rice week was initiated by then Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara after a visit to South Korea a few years earlier.
The rice week aimed to increase awareness among farmers and the general public of the need to increase rice production to reduce imports and improve self-sufficiency.
