Mozambique: Farmers could market 20 million tonnes of crops this year
Photo: IIAM-Centro Zonal Nordeste (Facebook)
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Monday urged peasant farmers to use production models that facilitate access to assistance from extensionists and to modern means of agricultural production.
He made this recommendation when he addressed a rally in the Alua administrative post, in Erati district, at the end of a four day working visit to the northern province of Nampula.
He said that production in the form of a “block or condominium” is already well known in Erati and should serve as an example for other districts. “We want other districts to embrace this kind of initiative, because producing in a scattered manner does not facilitate assistance, and wastes resources”, said Nyusi.
He declared that he was ending his visit to Nampula aware of the prevailing challenges in agricultural production, but encouraged to note a strong dynamism, a factor he regarded as indispensable for the economy to resume normal levels of growth.
“We are ambitious, and so we want more for the province and for the country”, he said, promising to return to Nampula to share with the productive sector forms of raising still further levels of production and productivity.
Nyusi also expressed his concern at the high levels of malnutrition in Nampula, even though this is a province with enormous potential for producing foodstuffs with a high nutritional value. “We should improve our dietary habits”, he urged. “Also we should not produce food merely in order to sell it”.
He added that it was not important simply that the statistics showed an increase in production, since “we want the increases reflected in the lives of all citizens”.
Nyusi also called for the full use of the extensive pastures in the province for livestock production, and warned that any land not being used properly “can be handed over to those who really want to produce”.
Alua residents who spoke at the rally called on the government to intervene to raise the minimum prices for which they sell their crops. They said the buyers fix “very low prices” which discourage production.
Nyusi advised the farmers to diversify their production and avoid excessive dependence on any one crop. He also announced that the cotton ginning mill in Namapa, the Erati district capital, will resume operations within the next two months. This will require increased production of cotton, to keep the mill in constant operation, and Nyusi believed this would favour improved cotton prices.
Speaking at a press conference at the end of the visit, Nyusi said he had become “more sensitive to the challenges facing the province” and was pleased that “food security is guaranteed in all districts of Nampula”.
He thought Nampula was advancing “at good speed” in manufacturing. “Local production is being processed here in the province, as is the case with maize, beans and cashew nuts”, he said.
Cement too was produced locally, without the need to import much of the raw material. Nampula now has three cement factories, the last of which was inaugurated by Nyusi on Friday in the port city of Nacala.
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