Minister Bainivalu still taking farmers’ calls

Alitia Bainivalu continues to help farmers even after her acting role as Minister for Agriculture and Waterways ended.

The Minister for Fisheries and Forestry still receives requests from farmers and forwards them to the relevant ministry offices rather than turning them away. Tomasi Tunabuna was appointed as the new Minister for Agriculture and Waterways on Monday.

“Even though I still receive requests from farmers, I try not to turn them away and say I’m not the Minister for Agriculture anymore,” she said. “I still forward to the relevant offices at the ministry to attend to these requests.

“I’ve also notified the minister that I will be doing that as and when I receive them.”

Ms Bainivalu had been Acting Minister for Agriculture since the death of Mr Vatimi Rayalu on June 12, until Mr Tunabuna was appointed to the role.

During her time as acting minister, she provided her direct contact details to the public in a viral Facebook post on July 17, encouraging farmers to reach out directly.

“I would get about 100 to 150 calls a day, sometimes more,” she said. “I would then direct them to send their request via my email. So, I had my emails overflowing as well with requests from all those people who called.”

Ms Bainivalu advised the new agriculture minister to continue attending to farmer requests promptly, noting that Mr Tunabuna had experience as assistant minister and was already familiar with stakeholders. Her ministry’s priorities for the 2025-2026 financial year include conducting stakeholder consultations for mahogany and forest bills and completing incomplete fish farm projects from the previous year.

“Instead of dealing with new projects altogether, we’ll try and look at completing our old pending projects before we move into looking at new projects,” she said.