Is Agriculture Dept.
p. 11 · Read in the full issue
Worth While?
Old Question Raised in Fiji
Prom Our Own Correspondent
Suva, Dec. 24.
FIJI’S exports are about £2,500,000 per annum. Take away from that the value of sugar and of gold exported, and only some £BO,OOO worth of other produce is left.
Yet (said Mr. Barker, in the Legislative Council) the annual cost of the Depart ment of Agriculture was £29,000, to which figure is had grown, in ten years, from £13,000.
He examined items in detail, and argued that, as sugar and gold production had no connection with the Department, the Department could not justify its existence, on the volume of other exports.
Mr. Barker, in fact, was not quite fair.
Under present conditions, copra bulks poorly in the exports. Normally, it is worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The work of the Department is done on the coconut and banana plantations in particular and, generally in assisting both the Fijian and Indian populations—both increasing—to become better agricul turalists.