Mozambique needs 500 tractors per year

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Mozambique needs 500 tractors per year

2:21 CAT | 31 Jan 2019

File photo: AIM

Mozambique needs to acquire at least 500 tractors per year over the next five years to boost production and productivity and move forward with agrarian mechanisation.

According to Ministry of Agriculture and Food Safety spokesman Pedro Dzucule, the country currently has about 1,490 tractors and 35,000 animal-drawn devices.

Dzucule is quoted by Radio Mozambique as acknowledging that amount of machinery is insufficient to plough Mozambique’s approximately 6.2 million hectares of productive land.

Dzucule noted that the country also has more than 130 Agrarian Service Centres (CSAs), public-private organisations created by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to provide inputs and services for soil preparation, sowing, irrigation, harvesting and post harvesting to smallholders and family farmers.

In addition to access to machinery and the sale of agricultural inputs, it is intended that these units also support the value chain, aggregating agrarian extension, processing, conservation, transportation and commercialisation services.

The CSAs are run by the Agrarian Development Fund (FDA) in partnership with the private sector under the National Agricultural Mechanisation Program (PNMA).

Source: AIM