Growing up in Fiji in A farming community and having lots of passion for livestock sector, I have seen the real struggles that our farmers go through with limited knowledge and capacity to rear healthy and productive animals. Upon completion of my studies, I wish to actively contribute in the area of livestock nutrition improvement strategies in Fiji. This is my 14th year of service under Ministry of Agriculture in Animal Health Production Division. I have generally spent my professional carrier as technical staff under veterinary and regulatory services and livestock research sections of Fijian government sector actively involved in livestock disease surveillance and monitoring and general breeding and management of the nucleus livestock on government stations.

I have personal research interest in the areas of root cause analysis on farms through participatory rural approach techniques (Animal Production issues and Problems) and finding practical and economical solutions considering diverse production systems and value addition techniques with economic aspects, livestock research in relevance to climate change impacts on production systems, rural development projects with innovations in livestock sector and economic analysis of the livestock production system. My master’s research is based on small ruminant nutrition which focuses on identification of feed resources used on farms and also finding out barriers for nutrition improvement at farm level. The findings will enable me to outline a practical and economical strategies for nutrition improvements on farms.

• Animal Nutrition
• Animal Production
• Livestock feeding
• Value Chain

Masters of Science in Agricultural Animal Sciences
Project Title: Inventory of local feed resources for livestock feeding in Fiji: availability, chemical composition and value chain perspectives.

Graduated September 2023

Read Ronils’ thesis here

ACIAR Project - LS/2017/033
Improving small ruminant production and supply in Fiji and Samoa

Supervisor: Dr Siaka Diarra, University of the South Pacific
Co-Supervisor: Dr Fran Cowley, UNE

Click here for more information (available on the ACIAR website).