Fiji boosts fisheries budget to improve tuna cold-chain and landings

Fiji’s 2026-2027 National Budget set aside $28.4 million for the Ministry of Fisheries, about $3.5 million more than last year, for 42 fisheries initiatives including aquaculture development, seaweed farming, pearl oyster projects, new fisheries stations in Cawaro, Koro and Matakunea, and ice machines in Vanua Balavu and Levuka.

In Labasa, market seller Tinal Laisani said the biggest gains would come from the basics that keep a promising catch from sliding into loss before it reaches buyers. Her daughter, Losalini Masere, said a more reliable and better supported sector could also persuade younger people to stay in fishing work instead of walking away from it. In Yasawa Village on the Udu Peninsula, Villiame Misianini said long trips for ice and sales strip value from fish and leave families with less money at the end of the run.

Tuna supports tens of thousands of jobs across the Pacific, and for nine Pacific countries, fees tied to tuna-fishing access provide an average of 34% of government revenue, according to the Pacific Community. Landing sites are the first point of sale for fishers and a place to get fuel, food and ice.

Fisheries generated $277 million and 8% of the country’s export earnings in 2022, according to FBC News, while the wider sector still faces limits on access for small-scale fishers, weak links from remote areas to urban markets, and poor communication between the Fisheries Department and the tuna industry. The ministry’s 2026-2027 allocation comes after a larger $50 million fisheries and forestry vote in the 2025-2026 budget, and after a March 2026 plan for Matakunea in Cakaudrove Province that included an ice plant, research facility and training centre, along with $56,000 budgeted for property works in the north.