The Chibabava district, in Sofala province, started this year exporting 90 tons of pineapple per week to neighboring Zimbabwe. The director of the District Services of Economic Activities, Hélder Alberto, who provided the information, added that the initiative arises in the implementation of an agreement signed with the Mozambique and Zimbabwe Chamber of Commerce.
He stressed that the referred understanding consists in the supply of 900 tons of that income product per month, at a time when the producers of the family sector of that district foresee to reach an average of 96 thousand tons in this campaign.
In fact, 999 farmers affiliated to six associations of pineapple producers in Chibabava are directly stimulating this commercialization process, namely in the areas of Muxúnguè, Panjha, Hode and Muxeve.
As a direct impact of the pineapple export will significantly increase the family income, and each hectare of this crop should yield about 47 thousand meticais, that is, each pineapple will cost 12 meticais against the previous five.
Based on the expectations of this cash inflow, it is also expected that it will bridge the food deficit that currently affects approximately four thousand families in the villages of Hode and Muxeve, due to extreme events of cyclones Chalane and Eloise.
It is in this context that the producers embrace new agricultural production techniques that are considered environmentally advantageous through a tree-planting scheme using eucalyptus species.
According to statistics from the local administrative authorities, 80% of the pineapple production of that district feeds some national markets, mainly in the cities of Tete, Beira and Maputo.
On the other hand, the chronic problem of post-harvest waste is already being combated, to a large extent, within the producers.
This demanded the need to install a factory unit for the processing of the fruit, whose interest is still in the sleeve of the Government that is currently seeking partnerships for this purpose.
