Suva market vendor Rajendra Prasad at the Suva municipal market on April 16, 2018. Photo: Taraivini Seru
Prices of vegetables have increased because of recent flash floods that wreaked vegetable gardens and farms across parts of Fiji.
Prices of eggplants, cabbages, long beans, tubua, and tomatoes have gone up by a dollar or fifty cents.
Suva market vendor Rajendra Prasad said the situation was punishing because most shoppers were not willing or could not afford the high prices.
“I bought a 15 kilogram box of tomatoes for $200 and some of them were bad and rotten and many were still green which I had to keep for a week or two in order for them to ripen,” Mr Prasad said.
“Eleven small red tomatoes are for $2 and nine slightly bigger ones are selling for $3,” he said.
“I have had to increase my price, so that I can make some profit from that purchase.
“For tubua a bundle costs $2 to $3 and pawpaws are selling at $5 for five.
“I also have to make enough money so that I can pay my workers on the farm and not all my produce are sold during the day so I have to bring them back the next day,” he said.
He said he usually raked in $300 per day from the sale of produce, however income dropped significantly since the onset of bad weather two weeks ago.
According to him, a bag of cassava is now sold at $180.
“We always buy cucumbers for $80 a sack but now its $180, it is very hard. We have to sell it at $7 a heap, if not we will not get any profit,” he said.
“Other vegetables like bele and dalo leaves are expensive as well,” he said.
Other market vendors around the country are experiencing the same.
