A senior academic say Fiji needs to find agricultural alternatives to its ailing sugar industry, whether or not it gets European Union funding for reform.
The advice comes from the head of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Development and Governance at the USP, Professor Ron Duncan.
He says Fiji's sugar industry will be viable even if there are only one or two mills and farming is confined to land within a close radius of the mills and is flat enough to use mechanical harvesters.
His comments follow a call by the Citizens Constitutional Forum that Fiji should seriously consider introducing alternative crops to sugar.
