After more than 40 years of living as a cane cutter, Aminiasi Namere has finally decided to return home to his village and start a farm of his own.
The 60-year-old Semo villager has started farming a piece of land that belongs to his mataqali (land owning unit), just a kilometre from his village.
Haggard from all the years he had spent as a seasonal cane cutter Aminiasi has only recently decided to retire from that sort of backbreaking work.
"I've always been a cane cutter all my life and I usually only work in the Semo area and other areas around here.
Semo Village and its immediate surroundings is on the leeward side of Viti Levu and is very much part of the famous Fiji cane belt area and it lies on the edge of the famed Sigatoka Valley and fed by a river which flows directly into the sea, just a few miles away.
From here on towards Nadi Town, it is just pine and sugarcane country and people like Aminiasi who have been brought up at the height of the sugar industry, it is only natural that they find work there.
The 60-year-old is starting from scratch after spending much of his life as a cane cutter but it is an experience that is not new to him.
"Now I have decided to stop cutting cane and to start my own farm to at least allow me to provide some food for my family," Aminiasi says.
He was very amused and laughed aloudwhen we asked him if working a farm on his own is much harder than working on a cane farm.
"Cane cutting is different but it is something that I won't miss."
When we caught up with him, Aminiasi had already spent much of the morning on his farm having already planted a few plots of cassava and was frying some for his lunch.
He had started the day trying to remove vast patches of grass and weed, which required the use of his garden fork than the use of cane knives because they are needed to be removed right from the roots.
Though he exhausted from this task right from seven in the morning, Aminiasi still found the time out to tell us about the story of how he came to farm on this piece of his mataqali land.
"I had already cleared this piece of land before I left to cut cane last season because I was thinking of coming back later to farm it.
"Only later I found out that one of my brothers had asked someone else to come and look after the land but I insisted and never gave up.
"Because I know this is our land and I had already made it known that I would be farming this land once I return and this is how far I have gone with my farming," Aminiasi says.
He plans to farm a two-acre piece of land and already he has planted a quarter-acre patch with cassava and looks to make more addition to his farm.
"I also plan to add pawpaw and perhaps plant some boundary trees but all this food is for my family," Aminiasi says.
Just as we were about to leave, the Semo villager raked the pile of wood that has been smouldering at our feet and revealed a bunch of well roasted cassava sticks that was to be his lunch.
Gathering one with spade and casting it away from the fire, we knew he is in for a well earned rest after a long day at his farm.