The Government intends to target 3,716 farmers in the next cycle of seed distribution which begins on Tuesday until December 2020.
While making the announcement Minister for Agriculture Dr Mahendra Reddy says the seed distribution initiative was also to encourage farmers to allocate one acre of land or more, to growing produce to meet market demand, subject to farmers agreeing to a condition.
He says the Ministry of Agriculture will provide planting materials such as seeds, seedlings or cuttings at no cost to farmers adding that the only condition to farmers is that they return those materials to the Ministry in three years’ time.
Dr Reddy says the reason the Ministry is requesting for the planting materials to be returned was to ensure other Fijians can also benefit and to allow the Ministry to build up its stockpile.
A range of seeds would be made available from Tuesday for farmers to take advantage of and these include, tomatoes, cauliflower, beans, watermelons, eggplant, chillies, kumala, and maize.
