Sugarcane farmers from the Lautoka Mill District in Nadi met teams from the Fiji Meteorological Service (FMS) and the Sugar Research Institute of Fiji yesterday – in partnership with the Australian Government-funded Climate and Oceans Support Program in the Pacific (COSPPac) – to be presented with the Fiji Sugarcane Climate Outlook bulletin.
The bulletin is a collaborative climate outlook product by the Fiji Meteorological Service and the SRIF.
According to Fiji Met, the Fiji Sugarcane Climate Outlook bulletin is issued four times in a year in line with the cycles of sugarcane farming in Fiji, and it provides advanced warning on climate abnormalities and advisories to sugarcane farmers and other key sugar industry stakeholders.
Fiji Meteorological Service Acting Principal Scientific Officer- Climatology Arieta Baleisolomone said the workshop was also an opportunity for the farmers to provide their feedback on the outlook product.
“We thank our participants for their feedback and recommendations which will help us to improve in our service delivery and also identify ways to better communicate the information to the farmers and key stakeholders in the sugar industry,” Ms Baleisolomone said in a statement.
Climate and Oceans Support Program in the Pacific’s Technical Lead Simon McGree said one of the roles of COSPPac was to assist in providing weekly to seasonal climate predictions for Pacific Island countries.
“In the case of Fiji, we realised that short and long term projections will be useful for sugarcane production and during this workshop COSPPac is assisting FMS and SRIF deliver that sort of information to the sugar industry stakeholders,” Mr McGree said.
