The state of agriculture and challenges in Mozambique

1. The state of agriculture and challenges in Mozambique Rafael N. Uaiene, ruaiene@gmail.com Maputo, 09 February 2011

2. Background and Motivation Mozambique a poor country with large agricultural potential. 36 million hectares of arable land Numerous rivers and reasonable rainfall in many parts Less than 5 million hectares actually planted in 2003 and an even lower rate of use of water resources Agriculture currently characterized by low productivity subsistence production.

3. Agriculture growth and Contribution to GDP • Agriculture contributes about 24% of GDP • Agriculture grew by more than 7% per year between 2003 and 2009 Source: INE

4. Major food crops Source: TIA, 2008

5. Major Food Crops , Small, Medium Enterprises by Crop and Year (ton)

6. Yield are low: e.g. Maize

7. Low agriculture Performance – The example of Maize Fonte: FAOSTAT

8. Agriculture growth • Driven by increased area • Low and constant level of labour and land productivity • Expected future growth on non- labour-intensive agriculture and manufacturing • Large commercial plantation eg. Banana, Biofuels, food (by foreign governments ?) • Low job creation

9. Low input use 9

10. Low use of improved Seeds 10

11. High Poverty in Mozambique • Poor performance of agriculture in Mozambique results in high poverty rates • National poverty head count not decreasing • Rural areas worst off • Central part of Mozambique doing poorly

12. Adoption of new technologies by farm households • A large number of promising technologies are already available in Mozambique. • But access of small farm households to the technologies is not easy. . Sources: TIA 2002 and TIA 2008 12

13. Challenges • Clear definition and funding of core public functions • Agricultural research and Innovation • Extension • Services • Information/Agric Statistics • Regulation • Monitoring and Evaluation • Strategies • instability and weak capacity of Agriculture Administration and services

14. Challenges • Adequate funding for core functions of Ministry of Agriculture • Agricultural Research and Extension • Agricultural services: • Seeds • Crop and Animal Protection • Irrigation • Information/Agricultural Statistics • Regulatory and

15. Challenges • Research and extension • appropriate technology must reach farmers and be adopted for use within the different farming systems • Access to water • Addressing inefficient management practices in water use and rain-fed agriculture is vital for the growth of the sector. • Access to credit: • FDD yes but how to engage private initiatives in this area?

16. Challenges • Access to land and land rights • secure land tenure and private use rights greatly improve the efficacy of rural development activities • Roads • Improve maintenance of rural roads will boost the growth of productivity • Policies, markets and agribusiness • Need to create enabling frameworks and policies for agribusiness, agro-industry and improvement of markets • Market failures have been acute, especially in rural Mozambique

17. Current and Recent Policy initiatives to address the challenges • Green Revolution Strategy (2007) • Food Production Action Plan (FPAP) • Agricultural Sector Development Strategy Plan (PEDSA) • Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP)

18. Thank you for attention !