Faculty of Business and Law
SCHOOL OF ACCOUNTING, ECONOMICS AND FINANCE
School Working Paper - Economic Series 2006
SWP 2006/08
Estimating the Size of the Fiji Islands Agricultural Sector
Phillip Hone and Henry Haszler
The working papers are a series of manuscripts in their draft form. Please do not quote
without obtaining the author’s consent as these works are in their draft form. The views
expressed in this paper are those of the author and not necessarily endorsed by the School.
This research was supported by a grant from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and
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represents a component output from ACIAR Project SFS 2003/069. The views expressed in the paper are the
views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the organisations where they are employed.
Hone, Haszler, Tuicakau
Contributed Paper to The Fifth IIDS International Conference on Governance and Development,
December 1-4, University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji Islands
Estimating the Size of the Fiji Islands Agricultural Sector1
Phillip Hone , Henry Haszler and Apenisa Tuicakau
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School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Deakin University, Melbourne
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Ministry of Agriculture, Sugar and Land Resettlement, Suva
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Abstract
Food and agricultural production account for a substantial share of economic activity in developing
countries like Fiji. The relatively large size of the agricultural sector makes it all the more important to
base agricultural policy decisions on reliable data. Moreover, improvements in farm sector productivity
are an important driver of economic growth in developing countries. Good data provide governments
– and citizens and taxpayers – with a more reliable basis for identifying policy issues and for assessing
the aggregate and distributional impacts of policy initiatives. Good data help to improve the quality of
both ex ante and ex post analyses and so help to make governments more acco