18 Apr 2012

Risk of flood damage to Fiji's seed sugar cane

1:55 pm on 18 April 2012

The executive chairperson of the Fiji Sugar Corporation says it's likely that this year's flooding will have damaged Fiji's seed cane for future years.

Abdul Khan says ordinarily once cane is planted it will produce five crops before replanting is necessary.

But he says a lack of sunshine this year along with the two severe floods that killed 14 people and forced thousands more to flee their homes mean the cane fields are very boggy.

"What our field guys are doing at the moment is out there surveying the field and to give you an idea, some of the fields are still inaccessible because it's still quite boggy, because we just haven't had that sunshine or that nice weather to try and dry out some of these areas."

Abdul Khan says the two disasters have caused more than 11 million US dollars' worth of damage to both crops and infrastructure and reduced the crop forecast by about 700,000 tons.