“ Why didn't we think of that ?What was the people in the agricultural ministry doing , they should've been thinking of ways to improve agriculture as Tonga like other island nations livelihood depends on subsistence farming . what's with the experimental Farm there is one on Tongatapu Vavau Lifuka Ha'apai Nomuka ongo Niua . They have or should have technician at the Vaini research facility testing and re searching for ways to improve plants and animals both for local and export to overseas markets and when they find new varieties that will improve crops they will than pass it on . Tonga used to export bananas same as copra but due to people not replacing old coconut trees the copra industry just went belly up . The Banana Board relied on individual land owners planting bananas for everyday consumption but because bananas grow prolifically , that when time came to pack banana box's for the New Zealand market all one has to do is walk around ones bush allotment looking for two or three large bunches of free growing banana that could fill two wooden boxes and he's happy . The few banana plantation at that time belonged to a few who owned large land lease so were able to plant as a plantation . This haphazard way of trying to keep a steady quota to supply the marked was unreliable and when the hurricane decimated the Kingdom both the copra and the banana export suffered although copra went into a slow decline banana export stopped altogether . Now the country is scraping the bottom of the barrel .We have chopped the " AHI" sandal wood trees to sell overseas till there is practically none left , we have harvested sea cumcumber from our sea bed to sell overseas till they too are on the brink of extinction , we have destroyed our reefs through walking on the coral and over harvesting the shellfish living on those reefs we have bared our shore line to the mercy of the elements when we cut down the mangrove . we have destroyed the rain forest of EUA . and the list go on and on . Now we are left with nothing worth mentioning .We are aid reliant , we also rely on our families overseas sending us money . The banana and the copra industries can be revived if the land owners and Government work together in a scheme to replace old coconut trees plant bananas because its quicker to bring in money , the coconut takes five years before it start to become the money tree , but it could be done . ”