Fiji Wants To Share In

Rice Boom

A SPECIAL fund of £3 million has been allocated by the Colonial Office for rice-growing projects in the Colonies and Fiji feels that it would like to have a share of it.

It is understood that a grant has already been applied for, and that the authorities are anxious to ex tend plantings in Fiji.

At present, most of Fiji’s rice is grown in pocket-handkerchief sized plots by Indian farmers. It is of the flooded variety. Large-scale or mechanised production of rice has not been attempted.

There is plenty of scope for rice growing as it is estimated that the rice eating population of the world is increasing at the rate of 12 millions per annum. World rice production, on the other hand, is still less than pre-war.

Most of the rice eaten in the South Pacific is now supplied from Australia’s irrigation area on the Murrumbidgee River. This costs about 10 times the pre-war price of rice when Australian growers—then in a small way—had to compete with plentiful supplies from Indo china and other parts of Asia.

The Murrumbidgee rice-growing area is limited to the amount of irrigation available, but it is hoped to expand production in parts of Australia’s north and in Papua and New Guinea.

The motor-vessel Pollurian, 328 tons, now owned and operated by the Bougainville Co., left Brisbane for Rabaul early in August, after an extensive overhaul in a Brisbane dockyard.