FIJI imports around 4000 tonnes of pulses — beans, urdi, mung and pigeon peas — valued at $9 million each year, says Agriculture Minister Dr Mahendra Reddy.
To reduce the import bill, the ministry is embarking on upscaling pulse seed production in the country.
“Pulses are widely consumed by all Fijians and are one of the major sources of protein,” he said.
“The focus of this program is to engage farmers to produce pulse seeds at commercial scale on their farms.
“In this project, the ministry will call for expression of interest from farmers who wish to allocate at least one acre for planting of a particular pulse.”
Apart from this, Dr Reddy said the ministry would also take the lead role in producing seeds according to the revised standard operating procedures.
“The ministry will provide pulse seeds (beans, urdi, mung and pigeon pea) to large farmers (with farms over one acre) and undertake complete land preparation for planting of the pulse.
“We will supervise planting of pulses and link up buyers to the farmers so that this initiative becomes demand-driven in future. In addition to the above, small farmers will continue to receive pulse seeds from the extension office.”
