THE Sigatoka Valley is home to many farmers who are engaged in both subsistence and commercial farming which has over the years helped improve their livelihood and standard of living.
Farmers are engaged in cultivating crops such as root crops and vegetables and tobacco which are either sold to the middlemen, exporters or straight to the market.
While farmers earn good income from cash crops, tobacco farming too has been very lucrative for farmers.
Rajesh Raj of Raunitogo in Sigatoka started tobacco farming about 10 years ago and believes he made the right decision. Although he doesn’t own any land, Mr Raj said he started farming on land he shared with the mataqali in the area.
“I share the land with my friend and we do our farming on the land. I prepare my own seeds for the tobacco and it takes about 1.5 months for the seed to be ready for replanting.
“The seeds are replanted and taken care of as any other crop is and when they are mature then we harvest the leaves and clean them before they are dried,” he said.
The tobacco leaves are then dried in a shed and then Mr Raj puts them into bundles before taking the final product (suki) to the market.
According to Mr Raj, dried tobacco leaves or suki is currently sold at about $40 to $50kg at the market.
“I am able to get very good price for suki and since we don’t involve the middleman. It has been good so far and with my next harvest I am confident I will earn a good price.”
Apart from tobacco Mr Raj also plants vegetables such as okra, tomatoes, French bean, chillies, long beans etc, which he sells at the Sigatoka market.
“The price of vegetables in the market is good at this point in time but it keeps changing depending on the supply of vegetables,” he said.
Mr Raj said he had been involved in farming since his childhood days and only started tobacco farming about a decade ago, as mentioned earlier.
“There are a lot of farmers here who are involved in both tobacco and vegetable farming which has benefited their families.
“I have managed to open a small canteen at home too and it supplements my income from the farm.”
There are big scale farmers who have their own transportation and then there are other small scale farmers such as Mr Raj who have to hire people with trucks to transport their vegetables to the market.
Mr Raj says whenever he takes his produce to the market in Suva he has to pay about $400 return as cost of transport.
According to Mr Raj his family has benefited over the years from their farm and will continue to reap the benefits of his labour.
“It has been good because we also get help from the Ministry of Agriculture in terms of fertiliser and other seeds and the agricultural field officers are also present to assist the farmers when they need help,” Mr Raj said.
