Mozambique breaks record in meat production with 181,792 tonnes in 2023
The pace of agricultural marketing in Mozambique in the first quarter of this year was “satisfactory”, the government spokesperson, Deputy Health Minister Mouzinho Saide, told reporters on Tuesday.
Speaking after the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet), he said the Agricultural Marketing Operational Plan envisages the sale of around 17 million tonnes of crops this year (including grain, root crops, pulses and vegetables).
The aim of the plan, Saide said, is to ensure that all surplus crops produced by peasant farmers are put on the market at fair prices, and that agricultural companies are encouraged to increase production to supply the domestic food processing industry, and for export.
“This is the start of the marketing campaign”, Saide said. “Of the targets, for maize about eight per cent has been marketed, for rice two per cent, for beans nine per cent, and for groundnuts ten per cent”.
In numerical terms, the target for maize this year is around three million tonnes, and in the first quarter farmers sold 266,000 tonnes. For rice, five thousand tonnes has been marketed so far, out of a target of 300,000 tonnes. For beans, the annual target is 600,000 tonnes, and to date farmers have sold 60,000 tonnes.
“At the start of the marketing campaign, households are concerned to ensure reserves for their own sustenance. Only then do they sell their surplus”, said Saide. “Often they wait for prices to stabilize. But the pace of marketing is regarded as satisfactory”.
The period in which most surpluses are sold is the Mozambican winter (from now through to August), and so it is quite normal for not much agricultural produce to be marketed in the first quarter.
On Tuesday, the Council of Ministers also approved regulations for the Professional Education Fund which “seek to increase the financial resources destined to the promotion of professional education, in order to train good quality professionals, increase their chances of finding employment, and to promote public-private partnerships to ensure the contribution of the mega-projects in financing professional education”,
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