FSC records lowest cane production in 2025

The 2025 financial year recorded the lowest cane production in the history of the Fiji Sugar Corporation (FSC).

This was revealed before the Standing Committee on Economic Affairs during FSC’s submission of its 2024-2025 annual report.

FSC chief executive officer Bhan Singh said in 2025, cane crushed stood at 1.332 million tonnes, sugar production was 126,500 tonnes, the number of growers was 10,231, and average cane yield was 46.4 tonnes per hectare.

“Just to note, in the 2025 financial year, that was the lowest ever cane production for FSC,” he said.

Mr Singh cited drought as the biggest contributor to the decline in production.

“The reason was the low cane, so there was low sugar production, and the major reason was the drought that year,” he said.

“There was a severe drought across all cane belt areas and all the mills experienced a reduction in cane supply due to the drought.”

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FSC head of agriculture Lakshman Jayaraman said the corporation trialed supplementary irrigation last year across 50 plots, but did not have the required resources to successfully implement it.

“The problem was the pumping mechanism and the delivery mechanism needed to use the irrigation equipment,” he said

“We were planning to bring in expertise on drip irrigation, rain guns and sprinkler irrigation for farmers on a trial basis.

Unfortunately, the pump capacities, conveyance systems, pipelines and other requirements were not readily available, and the cost was very high.

The FSC plans to partially implement the irrigation project this year at its estates to assess the cost benefits for growers in the future.