Country's banana exports as "nothing short of miraculous" says Samoa's PM Featured
4 January, 2018. Samoa's Prime Minister has called the resurgence in the country's banana exports as "nothing short of miraculous".
During his New Year message, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said that more than 50 years since Samoa's banana exports dried up they started again to New Zealand with requests for bananas being received from Fiji and Tonga.
Tuilaepa said the Ministry of Agriculture had acquired a new banana species from South Africa and given priority to big, commercial farms to grow it.
He noted there had now been three shipments of the so called Jewish Bananas to New Zealand that had sold out on arrival.
He said the success of the crop had inspired the ministry to push for land to be freed up for farmers to increase production.
- RNZI
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3 comments
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I love reading successful stories like this banana export. I bought banana few days ago, US of A. It was 59 cents USD per lbs or 0.453 kg. That is 3 banana or one cup of banana. Tonga would you be happy to sell three banana for TOP $1.20? There are few who criticize my belief on subsistence farming as the economic equalizer among our people. Not everyone is university destine. We do not have natural resources to mine except the ocean and the plantations. Do not rely on remittance, that is not a sure thing but you should thanks Trump for that remittance now. Once the Demorat in charge the remittance will slow down then what? I also bought a niu mata for $2.48 USD. That will be $5 TOP. May I suggest, please look at the long run instead of a quick dollar to make. Plant your crops. Long term vision and plan is the name of the game. We must not over look the role of the government in this process but that is a different story and a different problem altogether.
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Just came back from Vava'u and one of the bank there ran out of cash before Christmas because Kava growers took out all that cash. And about 98% of those Kava growers are just from one village - Leimatu'a. They raised 300,000 in one day to get their 1 million dollar misinale.
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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 .