Vendors make do with what’s available

Vegetables price increase blamed on flood damage
aqela susu
suva
The increase in vegetable prices after the floods earlier last month has not deterred women vendors at the Valelevu market from selling garden crops for their livelihoods.
Mere Rokobati has been a vendor at the market for the past twenty years.
She said that the price of food at the markets, especially vegetables, was increasing.
“Cabbages and chillies have been very expensive. Before we used to buy one bale of cabbages for $5 a kilogram but now it is $15 and the eggplants we used to buy a bag for $5 but now it’s costing us almost $20 to buy a bag,” she said.
Mrs Rokobati said the increase in vegetable prices was mainly because of flood damage on farmers who sold the vegetables to them.
“We cannot do anything more because the farmers too have been having losses since the floods and we have to understand that,” Ms Rokobati said.
She said that although the prices have increased she kept selling because she had to support her husband in looking after the welfare of their family.
Another vendor, Katarina Qalomai who had been there for the past twelve years, agreed that vegetable prices had greatly increased after the floods last month.
She added that she made good use of what was sold to her by the suppliers.
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