APART from difficulty of finding labourers and catering to their demands just to get them working on the farm, Nadi canegrower Sanjay Kumar says he has to bend backwards just to keep them from leaving the farm.
“It costs me $1000 to feed them and I have to pay $20 a tonne to harvest my cane, $13 per tonne for transport and $2 per tonne to the sardar,” the 59-year old Votualevu farmer said.
“After deducting the cost of weedicide and $20 a day to each labourer to apply the weedicide, cost of weedicide and fertiliser, canefarming is really not worth it.
“Farmers are tired of living in debt and that is one of the biggest reasons many are leaving canefarming and moving into vegetables.
“There is a big demand for vegetables like bindhi and cabbage and you receive cash as soon as you sell it.”
Mr Kumar said the only way farmers would be interested in increasing cane production was for Government or the Fiji Sugar Corporation to take care of some harvest and transport costs and subsidised land lease rent.
His brother-in-law Nirbhai Chand also shared this sentiment.
Mr Chand left his sugarcane farm in Veisaru, Ba, in 1993 after his native lease expired and the land he used to plant sugar cane on was held in reserve by the owners.
“I came to Nadi and stayed with my son,” the 59-year-old said.
“A lot of farmers from Ba became squatters at that time and this problem could happen again if farmers find it difficult to meet the cost of keeping the land they are occupying.”
Both men earn extra income by helping Mr Kumar’s son in a cottage business they operate from home.
