Mozambican President and FAO Representative in Mozambique

The 2016/2017 agricultural season was officially launched by the President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, in the district of Mopeia, Zambezia Province.


The Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in the country, Castro Camarada, attended to the ceremony which included the planting of trees, visits to vegetable and pulses production fields, the opening of Limane irrigation  of about 110 hectares, an agricultural and gastronomic fair and delivery of prizes to the best producers in 2015/16 campaign.

During the ceremony, the President, Filipe Nyusi said that "Mozambique is being plagued by cycles of floods and droughts in last campaigns, the effects of El Niño, decimated fields of crops, thereby exacerbating the levels of food insecurity affecting more than one and a half million Mozambicans ".


Mozambican President also said that the focus of this season lies in agricultural development based on agrarian specialization. The national common denominator is the production of corn, vegetables, eggs and poultry.
"These are security products declared national food production and each province must specialize in the production of at least one of these products therefore, will be the evaluation indicators of each province governance in the coming years," he said.


On last agricultural season (2015/2016) evaluation , the President said that "the results of global production were encouraging, despite the situation of drought and floods."

Cereals indicators stood at 2.4 million tons, 650,000 tons of pulses and 201.6 million tons of sweet potatoes. In cassava production were 9.1 million tons and was well above the established target of 8 million.

With this results the farmers find fertile ground to expand their production and productivity to a higher growth rate of 30% for this campaign.


However, the challenge for the new season "is to overcome the predictions of 2016/2017 of around 420,000 tonnes reducing the deficit to 89 000 tonnes to be overcome in the next two years," he said.


In his speech, the FAO Representative in Mozambique, Castro Camarada reaffirmed "the FAO's commitment to support the agricultural sector, as well as to contribute for food and nutrition security in the country."


In Mozambique, agriculture employs more than 80 % of the population and contributes about 25% of gross domestic product (GDP) and 16% of national exports. The family agricultural sector accounts for about 99% of the population of 4.27 million agricultural holdings, where only 1% holds fields with minimum area of 5 hectares, using a subsistence agriculture with little surplus for the market.