"Tui Tavua tells landowners to use it of lease it"
FORTY-TWO landowners in Tavua received assistance through the sugar farming assistance program but their land remains idle with no investment seen on their farms.
The discovery prompted Tui Tavua Ratu Totivi Kama to call for a meeting with landowners where he asked them to make productive use of their land or give it to family members who wished to go into farming.
The 42 landowners were part of a group of 110 Tavua farmers who received assistance under the program.
The assistance program is under review after it was discovered that farmers had abused the $4million disbursement last year.
Some had built homes in their villages while others bought household furniture.
Ratu Totivi told heads of land-owning units that he was concerned about the number of people who did nothing to improve their farmland despite receiving cash assistance to rehabilitate their farms.
He pleaded with the landowners to ensure that they replanted cane in the new season.
District representative Apisalome Ulusova said they were following up with all landowners who failed to plant any cane and were giving them options on what to do.
"They can either go into share farming or give the land to their immediate family members," he said yesterday.
Mr Ulusova said they did not wish to see landowners lose their land but wanted them to utilise it productively.
The move is part of the vanua o Tavua's commitment to reviving the sugar industry.
Mr Ulusova said a taskforce had been set up and was headed by an officer with the Fiji Sugar Corporation, Aisea Lovolovo, to monitor and assess all the landowners who were assisted through the scheme.
The taskforce will concentrate on poor land management as the cane production of the 110 farmers assisted through the scheme last year was very poor.
The farmers harvested 1430 tonnes of cane last year, each farmer producing an average of 13 tonnes of cane.
"That report is not very good, we have to do something about it," he said.
Mr Ulusova said since there was no other reliable source of income for the landowners of Tavua, the vanua had taken a proactive approach to salvage the industry.
"This is in line with the government's policy regarding the sugar industry," he said.
The taskforce will also give advice and assistance to the landowners regarding cane replanting.
Mr Ulusova said the idea to salvage the industry and the setting up of the taskforce was a resolution passed in their tikina meeting where all the chiefs and village headmen from the district had agreed upon it.
"They have realised how important the sugar industry is to us, so we are working towards reviving it in our land."
He said they realised they were becoming poorer because they were not utilising their land properly.