Mauritius grows food on African continent

SOARING food prices and lack of land have forced Mauritius, a net food importing island, to launch an ambitious initiative – growing its food in other African states where land is lying fallow and labour is cheap.

Mauritian agro-entrepreneurs cultivated rice on a trial basis last year in Mozambique, as well as potatoes and onions for the local market. Mauritius produces vegetables but no wheat or rice. It tops up its production of potato, onion and garlic with annual imports.’We all need to go to Mozambique because we lack land and labour here. In Mozambique, you hire people very easily,’ said one Mauritian agriculturalist says. ‘Plenty of land that belongs to the state is also easily available and it is not sold to anybody. One can get a lease for a renewable 50-year period.’Land is limited in Mauritius, an island of about 2 000 sq km with a population of 1,2 million people. It presently produces only 25 per cent of the 700 000 tons of food products it needs annually for locals and the millions of tourists who visit the island. ‘Our intentions are good and we can mobilise the resources we need but we have a limit regarding land,’ agro-industry and food production minister Satish Faugoo says.In this regard, two memoranda of understanding have been signed with Madagascar and Mozambique already last year. About 5 000 hectares of land are available to Mauritian entrepreneurs in Mozambique for agricultural production. Two major constraints are political instability and poor sanitary and phytosanitary conditions that stand in the way of a regional initiative.Mauritians are not yet in Mozambique in large numbers because of several other reasons: absence of production on an industrial scale, lack of irrigation facilities and a proper road network and absence of post-harvest infrastructure such as storage facilities, post-harvest treatment units for sorting, grading and packaging.Mauritians are not alone exploring land for agro-industry in either Mozambique or Madagascar. Chinese, Indian, South African and European entrepreneurs are also in this race for land to produce.However, Mozambicans are still open to Mauritians because of ancestral relations. About a third of the Mauritian population ancestors were brought from Madagascar and Mozambique as slaves two centuries back. – IPS News