Many people think of Fiji as a tropical fruit and vegetable paradise but in reality, premium produce on offer at resorts comes from Australia and New Zealand, while many locals suffer from a lack of nutritious food.
In Fiji's most fertile valleys, farmers are changing the way they produce food in the hope of improving the health of their communities.
The Pacific region has one of the highest rates of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the world because of seasonal shortages of local vegetables.
But protected cropping projects hope to change this and boost the economy of smallholder farmers by introducing a new sector to the fruit and vegetable market — premium produce.
Protected cropping essentially puts an umbrella on fruit and vegetables, thus controlling the amount of sunlight and rainfall the crops underneath receive.
The Lockyer Valley of Fiji
The Sigatoka Valley's fertile hills are dotted with small productive farms and market gardens, which supply much of Fiji with fresh produce.
"This area in Sigatoka we call it the salad bowl of Fiji," Sigatoka local David Hicks said.
"We grow guava, pawpaw, tomatoes, capsicum, English cabbage, Chinese cabbage, long bean and so forth."
Mr Hicks is the project coordinator for an Australian research project investigating the integration of protected cropping systems into high value vegetable value chains in the Pacific and Australia.
The five-year project of the Australia Centre for International Agricultural Research has just concluded its work to erect with protective cropping structures throughout the valley.
"One of the key roles was to ensure that farmers can supply all year from January to December.
"When you come to the rainy season usually supply slows and prices are affected.
"But now we get higher prices and have less imports so the farmers can enjoy" Mr Hicks said.
Project leader and professor of horticultural science at CQ University in Bundaberg Phil Brown said the project had two key outcomes.
"For the Pacific countries, the real value in protected cropping is plastic cover over the crop to keep the rain off during the rainy season, which allows them to produce vegetables year-round and also gives them the capacity to produce good quality vegetables" he said.
Just an hour from Sigatoka, the tourist hotspot of Nadi paints a very different picture of Fiji.
The food served in the many high end resorts are rarely sourced from local farmers due to quality issues and seasonal shortages, but Mr Hicks says protected cropping will change this and provide local farmers with new income streams
"Instead of importing from our big brothers in Australia and New Zealand, we can replace the imports and our farmers can supply directly to the resorts" he said.
Generational change
Professor Brown said simple changes in farming practice could create generational change.
"The real intent was to change the livelihoods by that access to markets" he said.
"We've seen examples with some of the farmers we've worked with, that might sound fairly simple to us, but [has] such a huge impact for them — things like being able to send their kids to one of the better schools in the country, that's a generational change for the family.
"Being able to buy a car so they can take their produce into the local marketplace instead of using public transport.
"Adding new rooms into your house so that instead of the whole family sleeping in one room, they've got separate rooms for the kids and the parents.
"Little things like that, with just a little bit of money it actually has a huge impact for those families."
Mr Hicks agreed the project could be life changing for those involved.
"You can go from bamboo to a concrete house, and you can buy a car, all because we can enjoy the premium price during the off season" he said.
Lucy Cooper travelled to Fiji with assistance from the Crawford Fund.
