BUILDING two new mills without consulting the farmers will not work in the Government’s favour, says former Fiji Sugar Corporation board member Arvind Singh.
Mr Singh, who was appointed to the board during the Qarase government until 2023, said this was because farmers were leaving the industry.
“I must say the sugar industry is dying,” said Mr Singh.
“If you go between Rakiraki and Ba, some farms are empty. People have left their farms and given up, and the farmers that are still on their farms, their children don’t want to take over.
“We will have less than 8000 farmers on Viti Levu by the time they build the new mills.”
Mr Singh said the Sugar Ministry had made grand plans to revive the industry but the growers, especially those between Rakiraki and Ba, were struggling.
“We have had no real solutions to the land lease issues. The cane payment system needs to be addressed. We can’t be asking a farmer to wait until next year for this year’s harvest payment.
“We saw in the news about the review of the Master Award but until now we haven’t seen anything being done.”
In addition, Mr Singh said there was the issue of the manual labourer problem.
“People don’t want to work on the farm for little money. So, we need to pay our labourers a lot of money just to get them to the farm before harvesting begins.”
He said these ongoing challenges have been worsened by the temporary closure of the Rarawai mill in Ba.
“Labourers, farmers, lorry drivers, they are all at the farms waiting to harvest their cane. For me, I still have 400 tonnes of cane yet to be harvested.
“They tell us to stick to the quota given to us by our mill officer, but we are hardly visited by them.
“At the end of the day they still get their salary while we, the farmers, will only be paid what we harvest.”
Mr Singh called on the chaiperson of the newly-established Parliamentary Select Committee on the Sugar Industry, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, to talk to the farmers.
“I hope he himself speaks to us and hears from us directly. He needs to hear what we are going through because if we keep going down this road, we will not have a sugar industry in the future.”
End the sugar politics – Singh
LONGTIME Fiji Sugar Corporation board member Arvind Singh is calling on the Government to leave politics out of the sugar industry.
He said politics had played a significant part in the industry’s growth and downfall.
“All of this blame game that has been happening for the past few days is not good for the industry, especially the farmers,” said Mr Singh.
“I was listening to the board chairman’s speech in Lautoka last week and he kept bringing up what happened in the past.
“And I agree with some of the things he said because there were a lot of places where we wasted money.
“But we are here now, and the industry is still struggling.” Mr Singh said political rivals should not be engaged in public spats when growers were faced with the reality they might not be able to harvest all of their cane.
“I have a farm where I have not harvested a single stick of cane. I am worried.
“How can all of these highly paid people say all of these things about each other but the farmer is still trying to make ends meet? We have a Sugar Minister who has made so many promises to the farmers, but he won’t come and speak to them and hear their problems.
“They are making all of their decisions without proper consultations with the farmers.
“It is very disappointing.”
