Fiji only has 30 percent or 600 thousand hectares of land that is arable or can be used for agricultural activities.
However most of these arable lands are now being used for purposes other than agriculture.
In the laws of economics, land is a scarce resource.
For Fiji that has a total land area of 1.833 million hectares, this law is already proving to be true.
“If the arable land is 30 percent of 1.8 million hectares, its about 600,000 hectares and you divide that by the population of 800,000 that we have surpassed in 2014, it comes to 0.7 hectares of land per head. In the last census, there was about 65,000 farmers,” said Gilbert Lewanavanua- Principal Research Officer Land Use.
The available arable land is now either used for other development purposes or not utilised at all.
This is now forcing farmers to move into marginal areas for cultivation.
Authorities says lack of proper land use planning has been ignored in the country so far.
“At the moment I know the Ministry of Strategic Planning is taking a lead role in trying to get all the key stakeholders together in such a way where we can sit, discuss and talk about developing a national Land Use Plan for Fiji,” said Nacanieli Waka- Director Land Resource Planning and Development.
With decreasing land spaces for agricultural use, Waka says food security for the country is under the spotlight.
Concerns have also been raised on poor farming practices that has led to degradation of land.
“As we move towards marginal land, the cost for agriculture development will be very expensive for our farmers,” said Nacanieli Waka- Director Land Resource Planning and Development.
Waka says there is also a significant area of land lying idle that could otherwise be used for agricultural activities.