Tonga beats head against wall with squash production [1]
Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - 14:00. Updated on Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - 14:07.
Editor,
Back in 1996 I was instrumental in taking PPEL out of squash export for a number of valid economic reasons then and now. Not withstanding fact that PPEL was a victim of successive years of rampant poaching.
The underlying problem is a grower mindset that believes big is better and therefore the more acres under production the better will be the output whereas in fact the opposite applies i.e. economic law of diminishing marginal returns.
In Japan squash is generally produced from very high yielding 2 acre blocks, per grower, with commensurately far lower inputs than that incurred by the Tongan grower. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out the economic benefits of such arrangement.
Tonga may produce a predominantly one market vegetable with attendant "all eggs one basket risk" but unfortunately it has failed to mitigate this risk and emulate the "Japanese Way" of economic production. And after 15 years of "beating heads against a brick wall" the result is an industry in terminal velocity.
What is staggering is that the industry has lasted as long as it has - credit (pun not intended) for this probably rests in main with the TDB and other risk taking creditors.
Regards
Wayne Madden
maddenaw [at] yahoo [dot] com