Repairing the ‘Salad Bowl’

Submitted by nikid on Wed, 06/17/2009 - 17:32

The flood in January was one of the worst but not the biggest ever experienced by farmers in the Sigatoka Valley and was a draw back to agricultural programmes set in place by the Agriculture Ministry.

The devastation was such that its impact was felt all over the country and in a way helped the exorbitant soar of vegetable prices in our local markets.

Not only that but the export market was affected as well and calls were made to pave a way for a quick recovery.

Primary Industries Minister Joketani Cokanasiga described it as a major set back and one that had a profound effect on the agriculture sector and the country’s economy.

It may seem ironic that a single valley’s ruin affected a whole country’s food chain and for what may have seem an insurmountable task, the path to recovery was quickly launched and achieved in a short period of time too.

The famous Sigatoka Valley otherwise known as the Salad Bowl of Fiji accounts for seventy of all vegetables that charmed our markets on any given day be it a week day or a weekend.

Such was the importance of this valley that past Government invested heavily on it with the dream of impacting the export and local markets.

It all started with the Sigatoka Valley Rural Development Programme [SVRDP], the programme that really saw the valley develop and became a ‘Salad Bowl’. Then along came the SVIP or the Sigatoka Valley Improvement Programme which was a sequel to SVRDP and with a more realistic apparition of a robust and reliable valley that can produce the goods with quality and quantity.

All went well and the markets were being filed with vegetables of all assortments from this famous valley in the South West of our main island.

In fact vegetables from the valley were in huge demands and truck loads of the commodities even board the ferry to the Northern Division to fulfill the market demand.

The valley is divided into three sectors by the Agriculture Department; the Lower Valley, the Mid Valley and the Upper Valley. The Sigatoka River dissects these three components of the valley and another division was borne out of it; the East Bank on the Suva side of the river and the West Bank on the Lautoka side.

Farmers on the East Bank were tasked to supply our local markets with vegetables and those on the West Bank the overseas or the export markets.

All has been going well until the fateful month of February this year. The rain that poured down all over the country was felt mostly in the Central Division and the Western Division. Damages were accounted in the millions and farms were washed away in a sea of debris, sand and stone.

Sigatoka was not spared and damages incurred on crops amounted to millions of dollars which included damages to infrastructure and left a wound on farmer’s lives that will take time to heal.

The Department of Agriculture knowing the importance of this fertile valley put in place plans to help with recovery and the valleys return to its former self.

Part of the plan was the introduction of a timeline to guide the stages of the rehabilitation process that took place after the flood.

As Mr Cokanasiga explains, ‘the plans by the Ministry were for the rehabilitation of farms in the valley and if possible began the exportation of some vegetables for our overseas markets by May of this year.’

Rehabilitation work began earnestly and with the help of originations like the Nacocolevu based Taiwan Technical Mission, AUSAID and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community the works took off and produced amazing results.

Mr Cokanasiga aptly described it when he met farmers in the Lokia and Nabitu area recently saying that the sight of farmers working their fields so early in the morning without a care to the passing government entourage is reward enough for the perseverance put up by officials and farmers alike in trying to get the valley back on its feet.

“I am quite proud of the farmers in the valley and to see them working on their farms while driving through was very encouraging and it shows their perseverance and resilience to get on with their lives and let the past be the past,