Farmers in a close knit multi-racial society were in a jovial mood when the Ministry of Agriculture recently conducted its first phase of the Irrigation Project at Nadurumoli village in the Province of Nadroga/Navosa.
The project was initiated in November last year through the Ministry’s Extension Division under the Export Promotion Program [EPP] of the Demand Driven Approach [DDA] program in partnership with the Land and Water Resource Management Division [LWRM] at a cost of $55,497.29.
The Ministry’s Senior Agriculture Officer (Potato) Mohammed Kadir Khan said the project was implemented because the area has high potential of producing potatoes due to good soil structure and texture and will also improve the livelihood of the farmers.
“The project will benefit 13 farmers of Nadurumoli who have been living in the area of about 157 acres from a long time with their main problem of getting water from the source to their destination,” he said.
He said most of these farmers were engaged in cash crop farming, mixed farming and are planting in their separate block of leased land through the “Bailey Trusts” sub-division.
Engineer for the LWRM Division in the West, Sant Pratap said the first phase of work was marking the sites to place the pump and pipe lines as well as locating the tanks spot.
“The next phase is to install the network according to the design requirements followed by the commissioning and pumping trials, all these will commence in four weeks’ time,” he said.
51-year-old farmer Miti Qara expressed his joy and said that he was pleased with the assistance in bringing the water closer to his farm.
Another farmer Salendra Prakash aged 40 said that because they faced difficulty in accessing water from the river to the farm, bringing it closer will now save time and labour.
Press Release