DAIRY farmers in the Western Division are asking questions of the $6 million government said had been spent on them.
Hirdesh Nand, a member of the Nadelei cluster, claims they had yet to see any tangible benefit from the $6 million.
“During one of our meetings with an agriculture inspector, they told us government has spent $6 million on dairy farmers in the West,” he claimed.
“I want to know where that money is being spent because we didn’t see the benefit coming to our farmers here in Tavua.
“The farmers on the ground have not seen that money.”
He said because of the fact they had been ignored, farmers were slowly being forced to leave the industry.
“In 2018, we had 22 farmers in our Nadelei cluster.
“We’ve lost seven farmers since then.
“This is because they are not being supported and they are being pressured to meet requirements that they can’t meet without assistance.
“Some of them left because they couldn’t even build a shed which is one of the requirements each farmer had to meet,” he added.
“This will also stop other farmers from joining our cluster or become dairy farmers in other communities in the West.
“If they wanted to encourage dairy farming in the Western Division, they should be helping us but over the last four years we haven’t seen much assistance.
“We’ve only seen false promises.”
