This Wednesday, April 12, the Secretariat of State of Maputo City proceeded to the launch of the agricultural marketing campaign with the main objective of urging the producers and stakeholders for the official and formal start of the marketing of products for the year 2023.
On the occasion, the head of the Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Extension (DAPPE), in the Directorate of Municipal Service of Local Economy (DMEL), in the Municipal Council of Maputo (CMM), Estevão João, spoke of the main challenges that producers, at the level of the city of Maputo, face for the full viability of their activities, from production, transport to marketing.
“We have challenges associated with various elements, not only the techniques and technologies, but also the costs of inputs that do not allow us to reach the production goal of 200 thousand tons per year, although we have reached, in previous campaigns, between 190 and 195 thousand tons. This quantity is achieved in the five districts with very strong potential for agricultural activity – Kamaxaquene, Kamavota, Kambukuane, Katembe and Kanhaka”, detailed the responsible.
In what concerns commercialization, Estevão João referred that “the products are produced and commercialized in several places: some in backyards, others in municipal markets (formal or informal) and still others in some supermarkets,” he said, to then highlight that “in this whole chain, we have intermediaries, between transporters and some people who go to buy the product from the producer and forward it to the different places (the ones we call ‘maguevas’).
The head of DAPPE spoke of other challenges that producers face with regard to marketing, bringing up the problem of prices: “at some point it is the producer who complains that the production costs are relatively high in relation to the price at which he sells the product, which somehow does not compensate his production process.
And this is not all. The Maputo City producers also struggle with the issue of seasonality that “affects the production, and some districts do not have enough water for the irrigation process, which conditions the production process and causes, from September until the end of February of the following year, most of the fields register a low production due to lack of water or above normal rains,” explained Estevão João.
For the secretary of Maputo City, Vicente Joaquim, “the problems of agricultural commercialization are not new, since they are well known by all”. And he stressed: “now we are interested in creating synergies so that, together, we can solve them, because it is our knowledge that their solution requires coordinated and articulated interventions with all the interested parties in the process. I am referring to the public sector, the private sector, and civil society.
It should be noted that the official opening of the 5th National Forum on Agricultural Commercialization, with the slogan “Agricultural Commercialization Boosting Agribusiness and Industrialization”, was made by the Mozambican President, Filipe Nyusi, in the province of Tete.
