New irrigation project to help farmers in Vuqele

The new multipurpose irrigation project for Vuqele farmers in Tavua is expected to enhance farming activities within the Vuqele settlement, ensuring the community would also actively contribute toward the growth and expansion of the agriculture sector.

While Commissioning the $30,684 project, Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Mahendra Reddy says the government is committed to creating a critical infrastructure in rural areas through which they can sustain rural agriculture production.

Dr. Reddy further says irrigation projects will boost farming activities for the settlement and benefit more than eighty farmers, determining the sustenance of livelihoods through food and agriculture production.

He adds the project will assist in better organising rural farmers through cluster farming, provision of extension services, farm-access roads, irrigation, mechanization, marketing support, and export development.

Dharmesh Chand, a livestock and crop farmer from Vuqele acknowledged Government’s assistance and said farmers had started to lose hope as they had to deal with dead livestock and rotten crops due to the impact of drought.

Chand says the irrigation project now means that farmers will not have to worry about livestock dying or crops being rotten as their problem has now been solved through the Waterways ministry.