Mozambique to expand silos and warehousing capacities – Watch

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Mozambique to expand silos and warehousing capacities – Watch

5:42 CAT | 13 Mar 2021

Photo: TVM

Mozambique’s maximum grain storage capacity will reach, by the first quarter of 2022, around 75,500 tonnes, which will contribute to a reduction of post-harvest losses and also ensure suitable warehousing that should prevent the complaints of poor quality often made by the food processing industry.

The attainment of this goal was expressed on Friday in Maputo by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Carlos Mesquita, at the signing ceremony of two concession contracts, budgeted at 40 million US dollars, for a management of silo complexes, and grain and pulse warehousing, under a public-private partnership regime.

Under the contracts, with a 40 year lifespan, the AgroBusiness company, headquartered in Nampula, is tasked with the management of the silos and warehouses in Iapala, Ribáuè and Malema (all in Nampula) as well as at Cuamba in Niassa province.

The Mozgrain company, based in Sofala, will rehabilitate and make operational the facilities in Gorongosa and Nhamatanda (Sofala); Lichinga (Niassa); Mugema and Milange (Zambézia); and Ulongue (Tete).

“The capacity of the silos and warehouses, which are located in areas with a great agricultural potential, is estimated at 75,500 tonnes,” Mesquita said, pointing out that most of the silos to be rehabilitated will be operational from next June and the others will be built by the first quarter of 2022.

The Mozambican government, Mesquita said, has built silos along the country to answer the needs for grain storage and warehousing in the framework of agricultural marketing, so as to reduce post-harvest losses and ensure the movement of economically cost-effective volumes from production sites to the markets.

The silos will enable strategic warehousing of grain especially in border areas where a very large quantity of the crops have regularly been ferried into neighbouring countries, without observing marketing rules, thus risking domestic needs.

Very often, the food processing industry has complained about poor control of humidity, pests and grain mixtures, which the minister said will soon be completely overcome.

Mesquita also challenged the private sector companies to be cautious about these aspects but also to build other silos across the country wherever they are necessary, to improve the country’s capacity to store and market good quality products either for domestic consumption or for export.

Angelo Ferreira, Agrobusiness director, said the partnership will benefit largely the local farmers and disclosed that his company is already setting up a plant in Malema which will ensure a market.

Darcio Omar, the Mozgrain representative, pledged that his company will make operational the silos and will seek, under the contract, to maximize the project so that in the near future the outcome can benefit local farmers.