The Rural Voice, 1982-01, Page 25Hands-on visit
for Fiji farmer
THE YOUNG FARMER
Canada, at least southwestern Ontario,
is a farmer's paradise -- but there's no
place like home.
That's the view of Sailasa Lutunaivalu,
a thirty-year-old farmer from the Fiji
Islands who spent last fall living and
working on five farms in Middlesex,
Huron and Lambton Counties.
Lutunaivalu was his country's first
agricultural participant in an exchange
program administered at this end by
Crossroads Canada and the Agri Skills
Abroad Committee of the Ontario
Federation of Agriculture.
"I like Canada but I don't think 1 would
like the climate," he said, just before
heading for Vancouver and then home.
"Actually, I really miss the climate of my
own country."
His own country is really eight hundred
and forty islands, of which one hundred
and six are inhabited. Located in the
western waters of the South Pacific Ocean
they total a little more than seven
thousand square miles. That's about
one-third the size of Nova Scotia or, if you
want an Amercian comparison, about the
same as the state of New Jersey.
Population of Fiji, which gained its
independence from Britain in 1970, is
about seven hundred thousand.
The island dominion draws most of i*s
industrial strength from its shipyards and
tourism, and the production of cement and
molasses. Still, forty-four per cent of its
labour force works in agriculture (in
Canada it's five per cent), and the chief
crops are sugar, ginger and coconut
products.
More than half of Fiji's land mass is on
the island of Viti Levu, and it's divided
among tropical forests, mountains and
large fertile areas. It is on this island, near
the village of Nadrau, where Lutunaivalu
lives on the family farm with his five
brothers (three sisters are married). It's a
fifty -acre vegetable operation ("We're
looking forward to getting another fifty
acres," he says), out of which come
cabbages, carrots, lettuce and long beans.
The produce is sold fresh at the market in
Lautoka, Fiji's second largest city
(seventy -thousand people), about seventy
miles from where it's grown.
Lutunaivalu spent three years getting a
general college education in Fiji and
another year specializing in agriculture.
Then he applied for the exchange
program. "I'd heard about Canada in
history and geography. I knew it was far
away," he says, "But I didn't know
anything about farming in Canada."
He arrived in Montreal, August 23, to
spend a week at a Crossroads -sponsored
north -south dialogue youth conference.
Then he headed for a month-long stay at
the farm of Don Langford, R.R. 2,
Kerwood. Then it was a ten-day stint with
the Ron Whites at R.R. 4, Denfield.
Then off to Lambton County and ten
days with the Laverne Wrays at R.R. 1,
Corunna and a week with Tony Hogervorst
at R.R. 8, Watford.
His month in Huron County was at the
John Van Beers farm, R.R. 1, Blyth, just
before he spent three days at the OFA
convention in Toronto.
In general it was a hands-on visit and
Lutunaivalu logged plenty of time
ploughing, bailing and unloading corn. He
was fascinated by the machinery.
"A farmer having six, seven or eight
tractors is different from us," he says.
"Canada is such a huge country and
farming here is so commercialized."
Many of the Canadian farms
Lutunaivalu saw would be plantation size
in Fiji. He was taken by the attention they
demanded. "A farmer here works longer
hours and harder than in Fiji," he noted,
"ploughing and combining sometimes all
night and all day."
Farmers in Fiji "have the heart to plant
but there is a lack of knowledge," says
Lutunaivalu. "There is a lack of
equipment and technology; they live so far
away from the cities. And there's a
development problem in Fiji because
there are no processing plants."
Crop rotation and mechanization were
high on the list of intrigue for Lutunaivalu,
but so was the raising of cattle indoors, in
a barn. He says that's virtually unheard of
where he lives and he's anxious to explore
the possibilities. It just might help a
land -short nation.
But not all of the memories Lutunaivalu
took home were sown on the farm. He
visited the Metro Toronto Zoo, the CN
Tower and the Pinery, where he made a
mad dash in and out of salt -free but chilly
Lake Huron. Because of a mix-up in plans
he also got an extended trip to Western
Fair. It lasted sixteen hours. He tried
bingo for the first time, watched the
London Knights play hockey on ice instead
of on a grassed field, and soaked up as
many television westerns as he could (no
TV in his part of Fiji).
And, as happens to all visitors to
Canada if they stay long enough, he was
introduced to real live snow. "The cold
air bothered my nose," he said with a
grin. "I liked to see the snow but not feel
it."
We're not so different after all.
We are now dealers
for
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of Drummondville, Quebec
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519-348-9753 or 348-8043
THE RURAL VOICE/JANUARY 1982 PG. 23