FSC tries to revive sugar industry with innovative strategies

Cane and sugar production continues to slide downwards over the past 20 years and the Fiji Sugar Corporation says it is now taking active steps to ensure that production increases by implementing a number of strategies.

Fijivillage has analyzed the statistics and it is clear that expiring cane land leases, non-renewal of leases, the drastic reduction in the amount of cane farm land and the huge reduction in the number of cane farmers have contributed to the drastic reduction in cane and sugar production.

Fiji now has 11,653 active growers compared to more than 21,000 cane farmers in 1997 before the cane farming leases started expiring.

Back in 1997, 4 million tonnes of sugar cane was produced.

In 2017, the aim is to have 2 million tonnes of cane.

Back in 1997, 70,622 hectares of land in Fiji was under cane crop.

Now we have about 40,000 hectares of land under cane crop.

Back in around 1997, Fiji was producing about 500,000 tonnes of sugar and sugar production is now about 240,000 tonnes.

In a stakeholders briefing in Suva today, Fiji Sugar Corporation Chairman Vishnu Mohan and CEO Graham Clark said they want to entice young people to get into cane farming as there a lot of ageing farmers.

Clark also says that FSC will soon get 5,000 hectares of cane farm land to become a permanent grower.

This will also be used to train farmers on preparation for planting good cane and how to get better yields.

Their aim is to have 52,000 hectares of cane land in the next three to five years, and to target through best practices, 3.5 million to 4 million tonnes of cane.

When Fijivillage questioned Clark on what is being done to make more land available for cane farming and security of tenure, Clark says they will try their best to entice people to come back.

Clark says with 99 year farming leases and other initiatives, they are confident more people will get into cane farming.

The Fijian government has pumped in more than $400 million into the sugar industry in the last 10 years while the revenue from sugar sales for that period was $2 billion.

FSC says any investment should result in about 10 times more in returns and this has not been the case for the sugar industry in Fiji.