Agriculture Minister Vatimi Rayalu has asked Parliament to support the use of agriculture as a tool to alleviate poverty and other related social ills.

Rayalu told Parliament that poverty is not something that only one sector can address.

He says poverty is a cancer that leads to many other social ills.

Rayalu signals the economic implications of poverty and the need to protect youth.

“Poverty is a bottleneck to socio-economic development, first if we are to improve the quality of people’s lives in Fiji greater efforts must be made by government to fight and reduce poverty. We must understand that the fight against poverty in reality is a fight against drugs and substance abuse particularly against our youth.”

The Minister says poverty leads to drug and substance abuse, domestic violence, suicide, and the exploitation of children, to name a few.