A nursery that could hold 360,000 seedlings worth about $70,000 has been opened by the Ministry of Agriculture in Sabeto, Nadi.
While launching the new facility, Minister for Agriculture Dr Mahendra Reddy said the nursery was the largest in the country.
“There are about 70,000 bongo chillies here and these farmers, who will be taking these seedlings to grow on their farms, are contracted with Agro-Marketing Authority,” he said.
Dr Reddy said Government was strongly encouraging farmers to move towards becoming agricultural entrepreneurs.
“Put your entire intellect, entire resource, entire energy, on growing quality produce and making it ready for the market to be picked up. That’s the model we are promoting.”
He added that in order for the agricultural sector to grow in Fiji, there was a need to grow the market.
“We want to bring market signal to the farmer, as we have done here with Agro-Marketing Authority and also other exporters around the country, who are providing market signals to the farmer.”
Dr Reddy explained Government would continue to support the three commercial models of agriculture, which included all categories of farmers, whether they were large, medium or small.
He said the first model was the business-minded entrepreneur who set themselves up on their own farm and then exported their commodities.
He said the second model were those who established processing plants and contracted farmers to supply to them then exported to overseas markets, while the third type were cluster farmers, such as those in Sabeto where farmers focused on commercial farming on a particular crop.
