Minister for Sugar Tomasi Tunabuna has issued a firm ultimatum to Fiji's cane growers, warning that this season will be the final one in which unapproved or “illegal” cane varieties will be accepted at mills. Tunabuna told farmers supplying unapproved cane that doing so breaches the Master Award agreement governing the industry and that mill operators have the legal authority to reject such deliveries.
Farmers were given a three‑year window to phase out non‑approved planting material, Tunabuna said, but compliance has lagged and large volumes of unapproved varieties continue to reach mills each crushing season. With this season designated as the deadline, growers who remain on unapproved varieties face the risk of having cane left unprocessed and unpaid if mills exercise their right to refuse it.
The minister also sounded the alarm on productivity, saying current average yields of roughly 50 tonnes per hectare are unsustainable. “It is our collective responsibility to improve cane yield from the current average of about 50 tonnes per hectare to at least 65 tonnes per hectare in order to make sugarcane farming profitable,” Tunabuna said, noting that the existing production profile is not profitable for either farmers or mill operators and threatens the sector’s long‑term viability.
Tunabuna highlighted the particular strain on the industry’s northern operations. Labasa Mill on Vanua Levu has the technical capacity to crush more than one million tonnes of cane a year but is operating at about half that capacity, he said. Industry modelling cited by the minister indicates the mill requires roughly 700,000 tonnes of cane to reach its break‑even point; current supplies fall well short of that threshold, undermining efficiency and financial sustainability.
The minister’s statement frames a hardening of enforcement that comes as sugar stakeholders already grapple with multiple pressures. In recent months the industry has been dealing with tight harvest windows, pockets of salinity that have sidelined planting on some blocks, and disruptions such as mill fires that have forced cane redirection between operations. Those challenges, together with chronically low yields, have contributed to underutilised milling capacity and depressed returns across the supply chain.
Officials and industry representatives are urging a coordinated response: strict adherence to the approved variety list, wider adoption of modern farming methods, and targeted support to lift yields. Improvements being advocated include replanting with approved, higher‑performing varieties, better water and soil management where salinity is an issue, and increased extension servicing to accelerate adoption of best practice — measures the ministry says are critical to restoring profitability.
Tunabuna’s deadline makes this season a pivotal moment for growers and mills. With mills empowered to refuse unapproved cane and the break‑even dynamics at Labasa underscoring the cost of low supply, farmers face an urgent choice: accelerate replanting and intensification to meet the 65 tonnes per hectare target, or risk having their cane rejected and the wider industry further weakened. The ministry has signalled it will monitor compliance closely as the current crushing season progresses.