Seminar in the Cotton Institute

Technicians from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MASA) and the Agriculture Policy Research Centre (CEPAG), the Faculty of Agronomy and Forestry Engineering of the University Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) and other institutions linked to the agricultural sector have been for two days involved into a training, within a technical seminar held by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the project " Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP) in Africa."

During the seminar were presented studies of test results at regional level on the incentives and disincentives in the production and marketing of some local crops, with greater emphasis on cotton, presented by FAO specialists.

The main issues raised by cotton workforces are related to the distortions created by exchange rate fluctuations and how to make the Mozambican cotton value chain more competitive in Africa and the world.

Through MAFAP, FAO provides assistance to MASA in appropriate agricultural reforms formulation. The Seminar was an opportunity for technicians also discuss the areas where analysis should be done in future that, can contribute to the decision-making process in the agricultural sector in the country.

MAFAP aims to develop national capacity for monitoring and analysis of the policies effects on the most important agricultural markets of the country, identifying their limitations to the development of the agricultural sector.

Besides Mozambique, the MAFAP is being implemented in a further nine African countries: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Government of the Netherlands and the Agency the United States for International Development (USAID).