Agritourism: Are we headed the right way? - Pacific Agriculture Week 2015

Agribusiness is not a foreign term in the Pacific, where most of the countries rely on agriculture as a source of income. To those who may be unacquainted to the term, especially if you’re on the western part of Fiji, just take a look out of the window, the sugarcane you see is an example. While agribusiness may not be something new, on the other hand agritourism is not so common. Let’s face the facts. There are times when the weather in Fiji is not favorable for agricultural growth. I hate to be pessimistic but I simply can’t say that the sky is green. Back to the point, half of the year there is so much rain that practically all the crops are destroyed in terms of quality and quantity. In adition to this, due to the rain, parts of Fiji get flooded, and the November to April period is famous for squally thunderstorms, cyclones and some of the worst floods recorded in the history of Fiji.

The other half of the year we have Fiji Electricity Authority (FEA) crying about the shortage of water at Monasavu dam. In case you are still not able to connect the dots, I am talking about droughts. Days get colder and there is no rain. Some years, the price of vegetables is so expensive that it is cheaper for us to buy canned fruits and veggies to satisfy the Aphrodite of appetite.Of course this is not true for all the years, the last major flood in Nadi was in 2012. The point is that the climate in Fiji is one of the major factors that has put the agricultural sector at the edge of the cliff. The other factor is the government, maybe I am being myopic; but as far as I can see is that the government’s contribution to push the agricultural sector in comparison to the efforts put in for tourism is merely a speck. To promote agritourism we need to have agriculture first. Not that it is non-existent but it’s not steady to accommodate tourism-based activities.

See more via CTA's blog: http://blogs.cta.int/2015/06/27/agritourism-headed-right-way/