I actually left in a hurry when my good friend John J. phoned me at home and asked me to travel to his place in Domain, Suva one morning. He needed help in cleaning baby ginger or (rhizomes) more than 700kg freshly harvested from his family farm.
The family was getting it ready for a local exporter, a company operating outside Suva in Wailada. Everything was to be ready by 3pm. I had no idea that my trip to Domain would take me deeper down the rabbit hole of this ‘so called’ lucrative ginger farming.
We took several hours going through about 20 sacks. John J. took me through a ‘crash course’. He began to talk about ginger, showing me through the processes from the farm, to cleaning and to the exporter.
I’m considered a city boy, So far, I spent my life growing up in the urban concrete juggle working in the city. Farming stories are fairy tales to me. Such stories of how farming families rise above poverty captivates me and I too wouldn’t mind getting my hands dirty — I do that all the time in my own garden.
I’m sure everyone knows of the ginger farmer who built Garden City along Grantham Rd, a booming multi-milliondollar business today. How about other fairytale stories of farmers who earned fortunes from rags to riches?
There are more success stories around Fiji and “all one needed to do is believe” — a quote from the fairy Godmother. If you’re one of those who daydream about owning a farm and believe in fairytale stories like this — then this story is for you.
When John J called for my help, of course I went – John J just might be the next millionaire farmer and he’ll need a friend like me to help him count it. But honestly, I’ve always been intrigued.
I travelled with John J, his brother ‘B’ and a good friend Yaakov one rainy morning, at 5am, before the break of dawn and headed for Vugalei in Tailevu. We reached there around 7am and off I went into the field with gumboots.
Two other men joined us. My job was simple, they’d weed through the plots and uproot plants, I’d simply cut off the ginger (rhizomes) from stems, clean and bag them. I had a pair of garden shears and empty sacks – they had digging forks and cane knives.
We prayed to be blessed with good weather, and boy! Did those rain clouds clear up and leave us open to the scorching sun. I felt like ‘achaar’ put out on the roof to dry.
“Talk about baptism by fire for me” or an even better expression – “out of the pan and into the fire” – I experienced first-hand how ginger was harvested and what to look out for before bagging them.
The day stretched on through thick para — grass, ants crawling everywhere and persistent bugs flying at your ears. But the real deal was the excruciating work before us.
I kept my mind and body focused on the task at hand, though it wasn’t easy to do. We all agreed to skip lunch in order to clear the hillside before nightfall.
Water never tasted so good in my life but I couldn’t drink to my heart’s content because we needed to preserve whatever water we had left. It rained again but we braved it.
It turned the mud beneath our feet slippery, so I abandoned the gumboots.
Our clothes were soaked in mud. Being my firsttime, I didn’t even think to bring a spare change of clothes. I came in my own pants that day and returned home that night in someone’s clean pair of pants – rookie move.
In a nutshell, one needs a good hip, back and knees to work on a farm. And it’s not just about getting your hands dirty. At least at construction sites I could rest in the shade, some farms don’t have the same luxury. I laid flat on my back despite the muddy conditions just to rest.
The rest of the crew were immune like ‘Rambo’ – I could tell they’ve been doing this a while.
The Bible verse Genesis 3:17 came to my mind after I was stung by a bee on the shoulder and repeatedly sat on thick razor-sharp sensitive grass that felt like I sat on another bee. I filled one bag after another as I looked at the boys clearing the ginger plants on the hillside wishing they would be done soon – it was like watching water boil.
I don’t know why he (Adam) ate that forbidden fruit — when it was FORBIDDEN! But I learnt a great deal from that tough experience that made me respect the work farmers do to get produce to the markets and on supermarket shelves – I’ll do all again.
Why?
We cleared a whole chain (a unit of length equal to 66 feet or 22 yards) or 20 square metres by local farming definitions. We filled close to 50 bags of baby ginger five months old. The local exporter charges $1.60 per kg.
We transported it back to Domain for cleaning before it was later transported to Wailada. We yielded close to 800kgs that day. Some farms have yielded a tonne’s worth from a single chain. John J explains that local ginger exporters pay $2.50 per kg for matured ginger eight to 10 months old.
So if one chain yields you a tonne’s worth that could possibly earn you $2500. Ginger is a booming industry but I believe local farmers sacrifice a lot and do all the hard yards – considering the whopping and unmerited difference in pricing factor. Substantially, a kilogram of matured ginger costs $15 in Australia.
Fiji exports ginger to Australia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Germany and US according to https://wits. worldbank.org
Tips from John J John
J said they opted not to pay for labourers but do the work themselves. “We, being brave souls or just due to naivety of being first-time commercial farmers, took on the task,” he said.
“Along with this came its challenges, living in the city which is about 30 km from the farm. These challenges include having to find available transportation twice a week to the farm. Figuring out the most effective and time efficient ways to till the soil and dig the seed beds, figuring out proper and effective use of farm tools such as operating the rotovator machine (for tilling soil) and perhaps the main challenge – weed control.
“For the most part, we were occupied with trying to keep weeds at bay, due partly to some sketchy advice and insufficient and incorrect application of weedicides and thus were late in applying hilling to the plants. If rhizomes are left exposed to sunlight they stop growing and may seek side – ways or downwards growth which offers little space due to the close nature of spacings between seedlings,” he said.
“So far, ginger has done remarkably well in presenting itself as a hardy and harvest worthy crop, and recovers well from disturbances such as careless snapping of plant stalks. If one closely follows the instructions and phase schedules given by the ministry, one can surely expect healthy and lucrative returns for all the work and investments put in,” John J said.
