CAPTION: European union Head of Delegation Mr Andrew Jacobs. Photo: FILE.
Theme: –GROW TOGETHER
FRIEND is organizing its second FARMER CONFERENCE in Labasa on 11 June 2013.
This follows a highly successful inaugural event in Lautoka last month that recorded more than 550 participants from cane belt areas in the Western Division.
The One day forum in Labasa will be bringing together around 300 community members and holders of small and medium farms and micro enterprises from the Northern Division. We are hopeful that the event will provide the participants an opportunity to see how they could utilise their available resources into successful income generating opportunities through Cash Crop Farming and Large Scale Free Range Poultry for improved livelihoods.
The forum will also feature screenings of a number of GROW videos of success stories of local farmers benefitting from the European Union Funded project implemented by FRIEND.
Currently there is already a total of 15 farm clusters registered as part of the GROW Cash Crop program. These clusters work in a minimum of 10 farmer per group to produce atleast an acre each of a selected group for which market is assured by FRIEND. These produce are in turn utilized in Food Processing for import substitution in the country.
The GROW project in the North also has a total of 80 small to medium scale poultry producers. The project holders are being encouraged to expand to larger scale production to cater for poultry demand on the island as currently bulk of its poultry supplies are sourced from the mainland.
The FARMER CONFERENCE in Labasa will officially be opened by The European union Head of Delegation Mr Andrew Jacobs. This will be Mr Jacobs first visit to the North since his appointment to Fiji early this year.
PRESS RELEASE