Copra Looks Rosy

Future For Fiji's Copra Looks Rosy -Minus The Beetle

From a Suva Correspondent Lord Silsoe’s target of doub

ling Fiji’s copra production with

in 10 years looks like being realised in half the time—pro vided the rhinoceros beetle doesn’t mess up everything.

LORD SILSOE is the man who held a one-man commission of inquiry into Fiji’s copra industry early last year.

Since then, a new scheme of sub sidies and spring-cleaning has been introduced, and production has in creased by several thousand tons — 5,000 tons for the period from August, 1963, to June, 1964, com pared with the previous year.

Two lessons have already emerged from the new scheme: An industry cannot run efficiently until it is properly organised, and cleanliness makes for better production.

Britain, which is financing several schemes for development in Fiji, has so far provided £383,000 for the copra industry this year. Of this, £46,000 has been handed out, mainly to copra planters, in subsidies.

To get a subsidy, a planter has to thin out his palms and clear dense undergrowth.

More Nuts This has resulted in some planters seeing the ground inside their plantations for the first time, and the obvious is staring them in the eye— a clean plantation means more nuts.

Huge quantities of nuts, which would have been lost in the dense scrub, have been found; and it is also becoming clear that a plantation cleared of weeds will produce healthier trees bearing bigger crops.

Furthermore, as good grass will be given a chance to grow and this will support a cattle herd, the copra planter can also become a beef producer and help cut down Fiji’s meat imports.

In cash, the increased copra pro duction represents between £250,000 and £300,000, which isn’t a bad return for an initial outlay of £46,000 although, of course, subsidies are not the only reason for the increase.

Yet while everything promises so

well, many copra planters and others are concerned that the deadly rhinoceros beetle may spoil everything Some weeks ago, the beetle was found on Vomo and Kadavulailai Islands, both insignificant copra producers, but on the way to the Yasawas where the copra palm is the Fijian’s mainstay, Then, on the evening of July 9, some Fijians sitting round a bowl of kava on the large island of Waya saw a rhinoceros beetle crash into their benzine lamp, which meant that at least one of the pests was, at last, on one of the main islands of the Yasawas.

Meanwhile, with 20,000 or 30,000 Fijians in Suva from all over the Colony for the Methodist Church independence celebrations. Mr. C. A.

Stokes, Supervisor and Executive Officer of the Coconut Pests and Diseases Board, was predicting ominously; Five months from now the rhinoceros beetle will have rea ched some more beetle-free w .

Mr. Stokes said that as the Suva area was heavily infested with the beetle, many of the Fijians m town for the celebrations would unknow ingly take back grubs and beetles to their villages in their packs, mats and baskets.