Farming Tools & Equipments

TOOLS
Tools used in farming are a very important part in daily farm activities. The common ones are the bush knife, fork, and spade. In rural communities of Fiji these are the basic tools which are commonly used for generations especially with Fijian Villages as other races use other tools like a hoe, rake, etc.

The choice of which tools to be used can significantly affect time consumed in all the phases of planting until the harvest. When primary cultivation occurs there is enormous efforts needed for tree uprooting in ploughing land.  Not only its time consuming but drains a lot of your energy especially if you are an organic farmer trying to minimize tillage. The picture on the left shows a vegetable plot ploughed using a hoe and it is significant to see that one cannot tell which tool was used.


From my experience  I found that using a spade on newly cleared land is inefficient and rather prefer a hoe instead. Well it all depends on what produce you what to plant. As for vegetables it is always ideal to use a hoe as the organic matter on the top soil is not tilted much and vegetable roots get maximum nutrients uptake.

As a little child growing up in a traditional I-taukei village tools which other races use are not popular with them ans when one uses them they are pestered upon. This act discourages users of such tools in their farms. It is only manly to use the basic tools said above rather than the use of foreign tools in this context. This is a fact here in Fiji where using of hoe and other tools apart from the basic ones seemed abnormal to say or not Fijian. This is sad as others races here in Fiji who use them excel in their farming and eventually succeed. If only this traditional mind set  is rooted then may be ethnic farmers might feel the ease in work load.

IMPLEMENTS

Not only tools are barriers but the plough system used like Bullocks greatly assist farmers in ploughing large areas of land especially for commercial farms. Not only are they cheap to operate but the soil tillage of land is much better than using a tractor. The cost of a pair of bullock would normally range from $2K and above but for a tractor its much expensive. Not only tractors are expensive they have an overhead cost that adds up the expenses in production, like maintenance and fuel pricing soaring regularly.

AgoNet is working on its organic model farm for training of youths  in the Central Division and the use of farm implements like bullocks will be included in the course to try and introduce farmers to other viable means of farming. Our filed man who trains bullocks (Naita) will be the trainer in the coming months as part of the course of study .

In fact in the other parts of the country, the Northern and the Western parts of Fiji, the use of bullocks is common due to the sugar cane farming influence introduced by the indentured labors from India. This is evident as our trainer is from the Western Division and have been using and training bullocks for the last 20 years. There is a lot of experience here.

Advice I give to farmers is try not to limit yourself using basic tools but try out others as it will surely make a difference in your farm.

'Ka makawa, sa rauta mada!'