Drones are being used to assess the extent of damage caused by Tropical Cyclone Cody and associated flooding in the agriculture sector.
Agriculture Ministry permanent secretary Vinesh Kumar said farms growing export commodities were the hardest hit by TC Cody.
He said no dollar value had been calculated as yet, but initial damage assessment (IDA) by the ministry has concluded that a large amount of export commodity was damaged by floodwaters associated with the cyclone.
Mr Kumar said the assessments found that crops and vegetables near waterways were largely damaged during the floods.
“It’s too premature to put a cost to it, but from our initial assessments, what we are seeing is that a lot of our export commodities were damaged in the floods,” he said.
“Commodities such as okra, eggplants and for the Central Division, there were damages to root crops, namely cassava and dalo.
“The ministry, along with our minister, carried out a tour of areas around Viti Levu and we have been able to identify the places that were largely affected.”
Mr Kumar said the ministry had enlisted the assistance of drones to assess areas that were hard to reach.
“Obviously, there were some places that were still very much inaccessible, so we used drones to assess and map out the areas that were damaged.”
Mr Kumar added affected farmers would be assisted once the assessments were completed.
“We have compiled some of our initial plans on how farmers will be assisted and what sort of assistance will be undertaken to help them return to some sense of normalcy.
“The ministry will compile a much more comprehensive IDA of our findings and from there we will be able to reveal more on the cost of damage.”
