The Opposition do not understand the state of Fiji’s agriculture sector, says Agriculture Minister Dr Mahendra Reddy.
Speaking in Parliament last week, he said the sector’s output had been steadily increasing over the past decade despite several external shocks.
“I do not know what data they are referring to or who does their analysis for them,” he said.
He said presently, the agriculture sector was valued at approximately $1.5 billion.
“Overall, agriculture’s contribution to GDP in 2021 stood at 8.1 per cent.
“If we remove the sugar sector’s contribution to GDP of 1.1 per cent then the non-sugar agriculture sector contributes to 7 per cent of the overall GDP.
“Numerous times in this Parliament, I had explained that it will be erroneous to say that five decades ago agriculture’s contribution to GDP was 21 per cent or over 20 per cent and now it has gone down to eight per cent and therefore agriculture is declining,” he said.
“No, agricultural output is not declining, agricultural output has increased over time but what has happened is because of the non-agricultural sector, some of those which were not existent at that particular point in time have now added on or come into being or has been expanding.
“For example, tourism, manufacturing, service sector and industrial sector all these sectors now have expanded over time and naturally, the rate of growth of these sectors have been higher than the gradient, the slope, therefore the share of agriculture’s contribution in the overall GDP has declined but in agriculture the volume of output has not declined. “At the moment, $1.5 billion is not a small fee for a small developing country like Fiji.”
He said the journey to this level of output was not easy.
