I originally hail from Island of Vanua Levu, Fiji, suburb of small town, Labasa. For my journey in education I had to travel from Vanua Levu to Viti Levu to attend my dream university, The University of the South Pacific (USP). While I was pursing my Masters Degree in Science, I had the dream to teach in universities and to apply my research knowledge, gained in mathematics & statistics, into real life. I had fulfilled the former, lecturing at The University of the South Pacific and Fiji National University and am currently pursuing a PhD in Agriculture at the latter. I believe that through research I can contribute to a larger group at various levels, such as farmers from ground level to academics in the education arena and to a bigger umbrella of government policies. Through 10 years of tertiary teaching experience I finally got an opportunity to join in as PhD scholar for ACIAR PASS-CR 2023 through FNU which I am very grateful for.

My project is on soil management in Pacific Islands focusing on assessment of taro growth, yield and soil properties using APSIM under present and future scenarios in Fiji. Since major taro-growing regions in the Pacific are understudied in terms of climate change effect assessments, consequently, APSIM, Agricultural Production Systems Simulator, a modular modelling framework will be employed to evaluate this situation. The existing module has limitations, thus, continued development of this module will enhance its capacity to model the reaction of taro to anticipate climate change in the Pacific and to suggest adaptation methods for agricultural systems. Given the importance of taro as a staple crop for the Pacific, it would be beneficial if this model could be more revised and implemented for food security and climate resilience.

• Agricultural Statistics

• Agronomy

• APSIM Modelling

• Soil Science, Crop Science, Agricultural Management

PhD in Agriculture
Project Title: Assessment of Taro Growth, yield and soil properties using APSIM under present and future climate scenarios in Fiji.

ACIAR Project – SLAM/2020/139 Soil management in Pacific Islands - Phase 2: investigating nutrient dynamics and the utility of soil information for better soil and crop management.

Supervisor: Dr Hirdesh Sachan and Dr Deeksha Krishna, FNU
Co-Supervisor: Dr Eganoosi Atojunere, FNU

ACIAR Co-supervisor: Dr Diogenes Antille, CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Canberra

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