Abdul Gani has dairy cows, sheep, dalo and kumala on his 150 acres of Crown lease land. He has 196 cows, including 30 milking cows, producing 150 litres of milk per day.

Gani has 30 acres of dalo and produced 75 tonnes of it in 2020, and 40 tonnes in 2021, which was supplied to Ben’s Trading Ltd, Agro Marketing Authority, and Ram’s Export. Mr Gani also planted four acres of kumala on his farm.

The Minister urged the staff to motivate farmers to use supplementary feeding or feed lots, silage and juncao grass to boost milk production in Fiji.

He said the cows in Fiji have the potential to produce at least 22 litres of milk per cow per day and it will only be possible if we use a good breed with proper feed.

“Fiji now has the Brown Swiss breed, which is a good milk-producing cow and we have to encourage the farmers to focus on proper feeds,” said Hon. Rayalu.

“The demand for milk in Fiji is 18 million litres and we are producing about 11m litres. We can produce the difference easily if we increase production and work towards being self-sufficient.”

Tiko Eastgate has 262 acres of freehold land and started with beef farming, then shifted to sheep farming due to the outbreak of tuberculosis.

Eastgate was back into beef farming and requested the Ministry for assistance to increase his production.

He was one of the farmers that bought the improved breeder bull Senepol breed from the Ministry last year and looks forward to increasing production at his farm.