Solar Powered Freezers Excite Ono-i-Lau Fisherman

Most of the men in this village are fishermen and this is going to be the first time they will be selling fish as they now have solar freezers as storage units.
The new one unit solar freezers handed to villagers of Doi in Ono-i-Lau, Lau will improve their livelihood and generate income for them.
The purpose of the solar-powered freezer is to provide proper storage for marine commodities which will further boost market availability and access.
Village headman, Mataika Pasi said the villagers who had been suffering for the past two years were excited about the positive prospects of this devlopment.
“The source of income for our village is through sales of Magimagi and Copra.
Now we only sell magimagi because the cyclones that have been hitting Fiji have really affected our coconut supply,” Mr Pasi said.
“We are happy that the Ministry of Fisheries is giving us solar freezers because now we can store and fish. Most of the men in this village are fishermen but this is going to be the first time we will be selling fish as we now have solar freezers.
“This solar freezer will really help us and we want to thank the Ministry of Fisheries for thinking of us as we are very far away from Suva.”
Minister for Fisheries, Semi Koroilavesau said the solar freezers would be for villages that had little or no fresh water.
“For the Lau group the pilot for this project is Udu Village in Totoya and Doi Village in Ono-i-Lau. There will be two for western outer islands and two in the Northern outer islands,” Mr Koroilavesau said.
“There will be a total of 40 units of solar freezers that will be distributed to the outer islands that we have identified.
“For 2019-2020 we plan to help the rural areas in anyway we can.
“We will provide the market for the fish and we will come and pick the fish from the village. We will continue to communicate to see when to come and to do our pick up.”
Edited by Percy Kean
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