Rewa Rice Limited harvested 9.18 tonnes of Ball grain variety rice last weekend.
The harvest is from its first own rice farming project which is to supplement the production levels at Maunidevo in Dreketi, Macuata Province.

The company from June this year has been working in partnership with farmers facing financial difficulties and have idle land.

This is so they they can start planting on share or sublease basis.

Rewa Rice Limited mill manager Ashrit Pratap said for this pilot project they had engaged one of their biggest farmers, Pyara Singh Jajja’s farm.

“The size of the land is 5.6 acres which was idle and Mr Singh was awaiting the Chinese technical team to plant,” Mr Pratap said.

“We engage the land for a season planting until the farm is used by the Chinese technical team.

We used this farm for a start as this is located within the Dreketi Irrigation near to the mill.”

He said the project was initiated by the management team and was managed by Rewa Rice Limited Mill operations manager Rahil Prasad.

“This project gave us clear indication of cost of production so that we understand our farmers better especially the problems they face and how better we can serve them,” Mr Pratap said.

“This also gave us indication that rice farming business is very profitable and the company now may engage more land to extend our farming projects.

“I would like to highlight that this will not affect any farmers as we only trying to supplement the production while our main focus will still be to serve our farmers.”

“Total investment of this project is $1,518.85 and total revenue we are looking at is $6,426.00.

“The reduction in cost of production was mainly due to the machinery provided by Ministry of Agriculture at subsidized rate.

Mr Pratap said in their view, this is a very good income for any rice farmer and encourages farmers to take up rice farming.

“We will again plant on the same land plus we also wish to expand the farming area within the irrigation area for the main season starting in December.

“We also would like to expand to other areas and partner with farmers, mataqali’s and cooperatives.”