Vegetable and fruit prices are have increased dramatically just days after cyclone winds and flood waters ravaged key farming districts in both the Western and Central Divisions.

In Suva, prices have sky rocketed signaling of more increases to come in the coming weeks as farmers lose almost all their crops and vegetables in the floods.

A bag of cassava currently sells sixty dollars from twenty dollars last week and a bundle of dalo is selling between fifteen and twenty dollars a bundle.

Suva middlemen Kelvin Raj is feeling the pinch as he tries to make a profit.

“Right now baigan is $35 bag before the cyclone it was $15 bag. We have to sell for high prices now and tomatoes it was $30 one box today I bought it for $55.The dhania used to be $4 dozen but today I bought it for $10 dozen, pumpkin before was $10 bag and today it is $35. The price of banana has also gone up and pawpaw also is very expensive – before it was $40 a box and now it is $90."

“All other vegetables like lemon, we used to buy $1kg and today it was $3 kg and the cabbage is very expensive last week I bought one bag for $20 and today it was $40 – that is double price.”

Meanwhile, one of the big suppliers of dalo and ota to the Suva market, farmers in Waidina and Naitasiri are scraping for what is left from their plantations after flood waters destroyed their only source of income.

At Muaniweni, the trail of destruction left behind by Cyclone Evan is evident in acres and acres of dalo, cassava and vegetable farms on the flats.