FAO supports food production plan in Moz

Maputo – The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is providing a million US dollars to help implement the Mozambican government’s food production plans.

According to the FAO representative in Mozambique and Swaziland, Maria Zimmerman, this sum, to be used over a period of 18 months, is to assist the country in combating the international food crisis. Speaking to AIM and to Radio Mozambique, after a lecture on the impact of the food crisis on Mozambique, given at the Agronomy Faculty of Maputo’s Eduardo Mondlane University, Zimmerman said: “We shall support what is necessary.”That would include, for example, investing in a more efficient rural extension system, and providing techniques to improve the production of cassava, one of the country’s most important staple foods.The Food Production Action Plan for 2008-2011 was approved by the government in June, and its main goal is to reduce Mozambique’s current grain deficit, with practical actions beginning in the 2008/2009 agricultural year.Currently Mozambique is more or less self-sufficient in maize, but the same cannot be said for rice or wheat.The annual consumption of rice is 539 000 tonnes – but Mozambique only produces 223 000 tonnes a year.Small amounts of wheat are grown in Tete province, but 469 000 tonnes of this grain a year are imported.Implementing the Food Production Action Plan will cost around 400 million dollars spread over three agricultural years.Zimmerman described the plan as “very ambitious”, but nonetheless urged the government “to put into practice what the plan says about food production”.For this, she thought it imperative to improve the road system so that food could more readily be moved from surplus areas in the north to deficit areas in the south.She noted that moving food by ship down the coast should be cheaper than road transport – yet somehow, in Mozambique it was not.Speaking at the lecture, the deputy national director of agricultural services, Manuel Chiquisse, said the government is currently selecting beneficiaries in the districts who will receive agricultural inputs in the first phase of the plan.These inputs will not all be free of charge.Farmers using machinery such as tractors will be expected to pay towards their cost, and will be obliged to insure the equipment.The government targets for the first year of the plan are that the country should produce 53 000 more tonnes of rice than were harvested this year, and increase wheat and grain harvests by 21 300 and 65 000 tonnes, respectively.Zimmerman argued that one of the causes of the current crisis lies in the subsidies offered by the governments of the rich north to their farmers, while African governments simply do not have the resources to offer such subsidies.Zimmerman noted that the only subsidy Mozambican farmers enjoy is indirect.They do not pay any taxes on key agricultural inputs.”It’s not enough, but it does stimulate producers,” she said.Government subsidies for fertilizer in Malawi “was a good experience, but it involves heavy costs”.In some key crops, productivity has increased in recent years, Zimmerman said.Thus average cassava productivity rose from 5.9 to 7.2 tonnes a hectare between 2001 and 2007.For maize the rise was from 0.89 to 1.1 tonnes a hectare.But Zimmerman pointed out that Mozambique has the potential to produce eight tonnes of maize per hectare, while in some countries the productivity of this crop reaches 18 tonnes a hectare.Nampa-AIMSpeaking to AIM and to Radio Mozambique, after a lecture on the impact of the food crisis on Mozambique, given at the Agronomy Faculty of Maputo’s Eduardo Mondlane University, Zimmerman said: “We shall support what is necessary.”That would include, for example, investing in a more efficient rural extension system, and providing techniques to improve the production of cassava, one of the country’s most important staple foods.The Food Production Action Plan for 2008-2011 was approved by the government in June, and its main goal is to reduce Mozambique’s current grain deficit, with practical actions beginning in the 2008/2009 agricultural year.Currently Mozambique is more or less self-sufficient in maize, but the same cannot be said for rice or wheat.The annual consumption of rice is 539 000 tonnes – but Mozambique only produces 223 000 tonnes a year.Small amounts of wheat are grown in Tete province, but 469 000 tonnes of this grain a year are imported.Implementing the Food Production Action Plan will cost around 400 million dollars spread over three agricultural years.Zimmerman described the plan as “very ambitious”, but nonetheless urged the government “to put into practice what the plan says about food production”.For this, she thought it imperative to improve the road system so that food could more readily be moved from surplus areas in the north to deficit areas in the south.She noted that moving food by ship down the coast should be cheaper than road transport – yet somehow, in Mozambique it was not.Speaking at the lecture, the deputy national director of agricultural services, Manuel Chiquisse, said the government is currently selecting beneficiaries in the districts who will receive agricultural inputs in the first phase of the plan.These inputs will not all be free of charge.Farmers using machinery such as tractors will be expected to pay towards their cost, and will be obliged to insure the equipment.The government targets for the first year of the plan are that the country should produce 53 000 more tonnes of rice than were harvested this year, and increase wheat and grain harvests by 21 300 and 65 000 tonnes, respectively.Zimmerman argued that one of the causes of the current crisis lies in the subsidies offered by the governments of the rich north to their farmers, while African governments simply do not have the resources to offer such subsidies.Zimmerman noted that the only subsidy Mozambican farmers enjoy is indirect.They do not pay any taxes on key agricultural inputs.”It’s not enough, but it does stimulate producers,” she said.Government subsidies for fertilizer in Malawi “was a good experience, but it involves heavy costs”.In some key crops, productivity has increased in recent years, Zimmerman said.Thus average cassava productivity rose from 5.9 to 7.2 tonnes a hectare between 2001 and 2007.For maize the rise was from 0.89 to 1.1 tonnes a hectare.But Zimmerman pointed out that Mozambique has the potential to produce eight tonnes of maize per hectare, while in some countries the productivity of this crop reaches 18 tonnes a hectare.Nampa-AIM

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