June 2017
GroFed is involved in policy awareness and advocacy for its smallholder farmers in Tonga
GroFed is playing a key role in creating awareness on the proposed ‘Water Bill’ in Tonga for its smallholder farmers. As the coordinator of the Agricultural Sector Growth Committee, GroFed has also coordinated with other actors in the agricultural industry to advocate Tongan legislators to reconsider the bill in its current form. If the bill is passed, growers who have invested in water supply in their own farm property will lose their rights to own and take water from their water source. This bill has been deferred by Parliament in 2016 for further public consultations.
GroFed is also actively involved in pushing for investment in farm irrigation for smallholder farmers in Tonga. Currently around 80% of farmers in Tonga are reliant solely on rain water for irrigation and GroFed feels that there is much more to be done to improve access to irrigation which will improve the quality of produce and help farmers to mitigate against natural disasters such as drought. On this issue, GroFed is working as a key member of the taskforce for agricultural irrigation which has been recently established.