Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi launched the 2022/2023 agricultural marketing campaign on Wednesday in the Marracuene district, about 30 kilometres north of Maputo.
This year’s marketing goal is slightly more than 17 million tonnes of various crops. Grain should account for 21% of this total, with root crops accounting for 45%, vegetables 13%, pulses 11%, oilseeds 4%, and miscellaneous other crops accounting for 20%.
Nyusi urged that the current marketing campaign produce immediate results in terms of generating income for rural households and improving the well-being of Mozambicans, both of which are fundamental goals of his administration.
He reaffirmed the government’s commitment to promote industrialisation as a factor that stimulates the expansion of agricultural production.
This would involve “continuing the reforms that are underway to attract investment, alongside building infrastructures in the rural areas, particularly roads and electrification”.
Nyusi urged all those involved in marketing to make use of last week Thursday’s visit by Malawian President, Lazarus Chakwera, in order to internationalise Mozambican economic activities.
Chakwera, he said, will visit the installations in Marracuene of the Maputo International Trade Fair (FACIM), where he will address Mozambican businesspeople. “There’s a lot that Malawi produces, but above all, there is a great deal that it needs, and it’s not difficult to take a business to Malawi. Let’s internationalise our economic activities. You will see the impact of internationalisation”.
For his part, the Minister of Industry and Trade, Silvino Moreno, said that, when speaking of the chain of agricultural marketing, the government is referring to the whole range of operational and market activities from the place of production, through harvesting, processing, storage and distribution until reaching the final consumer.
“The efficiency of this process requires improving activities at each stage in the chain so that the final product reaches the consumer within acceptable standards, and with the necessary quality”, he said.
Moreno added that it also requires permanent dialogue with the other stakeholders in marketing, including the smallholder farmers themselves, the transporters, storage and agro-processing units, industrialists, regulators and decision-makers.
