Nampula farmers at loggerheads with Sustenta

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Nampula farmers at loggerheads with Sustenta

3:19 CAT | 05 Feb 2021

Photo: O País

One hundred and fifteen farmers selected to benefit from the ‘Sustenta’ agricultural programme have not yet received tractors and other agricultural inputs in Nampula, three months after signing contracts. The situation may jeopardise the government’s expectations for this agricultural season.

Delfim Bonifácio is the largest farmer in Larde district, a coastal part of Nampula province, where he grows sesame, corn, peanuts and other cash crops over 165 hectares of land. Bonifácio is one of the 115 farmers who signed contracts with the government in October last year for tractors, seeds, insecticides, and other inputs, as well as to benefit from a working fund to increase their production capacity, but so far they have only received insecticides and seeds.

“One hundred hectares was for sesame, I already made 70, I have 30 hectares left to complete, but due to lack of funds I’m at a standstill. In addition to that, I also have a piece of land that has not yet been hoed, because I do not yet have funds to do it. So I am very concerned,” Bonifácio says.

Such were the concerns presented yesterday to the provincial director of Agriculture and Fisheries in Nampula, with only three months left to end of the second cycle of the agricultural season.

“There is a delay in receiving agricultural equipment and working capital for the allocation of labour for sowing and weeding, among others tasks,” another of the farmers, António Ernesto, complains.

The beneficiaries also complain of the exorbitant cost of insecticides and seed preservatives, and the low quality of the seed supplied. “Of course, it reads seed, but we are doubtful whether it is seed or actually grain,” another farmer said.

The head of Agriculture and Fisheries in Nampula, Ernesto Pacule, acknowledged the legitimacy of the farmers’ concerns, explaining that the 115 tractors for Nampula have not yet arrived, there being none at the local market, but reassured them that all producers would have tractors according to their contracts this or next month.

Regarding the working capital for weeding and the quality of seeds, Ernesto Pacule said he would look into this with relevant government entities and only then reply to the farmers.

By Ricardo Machava

Source: O País