Harvest “encouraging” despite drought – Nyusi

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Harvest “encouraging” despite drought – Nyusi

7:20 CAT | 02 Nov 2016

FUTEBOL - Filipe Nyusi e Zadamela, no jogo Mocambique vs Sudao do Sul (5-0), da 1a Qualificacao. Estadio Nacional do Zimpeto, em Maputo, em Mocambique. Domingo,18 de maio de 2014. (SERGIO COSTA/ASF)

File photo / President Filipe Nyusi

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said on Friday that the preliminary assessment of the harvests from the 2015/2016 agricultural campaign indicates that overall production was “encouraging”, despite the severe drought that hit southern Mozambique and parts of the central provinces.

Speaking in Mopeia, in the central province of Zambezia, at the launch of the 2016/2017 campaign, Nyusi said the figures from the 2016 harvest show grain production of 2.4 million tonnes. 656,000 tonnes of assorted pulses were produced and 1.6 million tonnes of sweet potatoes.

Vegetable production, at 1.9 million tonnes, surpassed expectations, Nyusi said, but imports of tomatoes and onions remain very high.

9.1 million tonnes of cassava were harvested – well in excess of the target figure of eight million tonnes. He hoped that farmers would be able to increase cassava production by over 30 per cent in the 2016/17 campaign.

As expected there was a serious shortfall in potato production. 263,000 tonnes were produced, leaving 142,000 tonnes to be imported. The challenge for the new campaign is to raise potato production to 420,000 tonnes, said Nyusi, and eliminate the shortfall within the next two years.

“We have alerted the Ministry of Agriculture to follow this crop closely, supporting and monitoring it”, he added.

Likewise with tomatoes and onions – within the next two years, Nyusi wanted to see annual tomato production rise to more than 600,000 tonnes and that of onions to at least 350,000 tonnes, thus dramatically reducing the need for imports.

Mozambique is almost self-sufficient in maize, yet maize flour continues to be imported. Nyusi stressed the need to step up maize processing capacity, in order to eliminate these imports.

Source: AIM