Nature’s Way Cooperative creates borehole to control cost of water usage

Nadi, Fiji – Nature’s Way Cooperative is turning to ingenious methods to control current cost of water usage and move towards more sustainable methods, including the installation of a borehole.

The Cooperative found that during the high temperature forced air treatment, a large amount of water is used in the hydrocooling process to cool the fruits after it has been treated.

“The installation was challenging but once we located an adequate source of water, we drilled about 50 feet and connected the water from the borehole to the main pipes”, said manager, Donald Pickering.

“It involves a great deal of plumbing works and additional equipment to manage any potential flooding within the facilities which is often the case when there is a high level of treatment per day”.

While plumbing works are expected to be completed soon, the country’s only quarantine treatment facility for fruit fly, is also working with Douglas Pharmaceutical and the University of the South Pacific for water testing.

“The main test that we would like to conduct is to gauge if the water from the bore is drinkable, we will be monitoring the situation closely in the next few weeks”.

Meanwhile land preparation work has started for Fiji Red Papaya farmers from Votualevu and Sabeto, it coincides with Fiji Red Papaya Seedlings preparation work handled by Sant Kumar of Bula Agro and will supplement the seedstock at Nature’s Way Cooperative.

“We’re continuing our work with farmers through the assistance of farming tools and protein bait to protect the quality of the commodity that is being exported, which we can expect to see an increase in exports and income for farmers,” said Donald Pickering.