Four irrigation systems located in Zambezi Valley, Zambezia province, will be rehabilitated this year, within the scope of the Irrigated Small Scale Agriculture and Market Access Project (IRRIGA), aiming at intensive rice production.
The four systems, whose rehabilitation is budgeted at 732 million meticais, are located in Nicoadala, Mopeia and Morrumbala districts, covering an area of 900 hectares. These are districts with high agro-ecological potential for production of cereals, vegetables and pulses.
According to data from the Zambézia Irrigation Technical Committee, the work will consist of rehabilitation and construction of new irrigation schemes, with a view to implementing the government’s project to increase rice production to feed local factories and reduce the country’s dependence on this grain.
After the rehabilitation of the irrigation systems, the Government’s focus is to ensure their sustainability, according to the provincial director for Agriculture and Fisheries, Fernando Namucua.
What happens, he explained, is that after the Government finances the rehabilitation of the irrigation systems, it hands them over to the management of producers’ associations that, in the meantime, do not invest in their maintenance, which compromises the sustainability and effective operation of the systems in the production of food to meet domestic needs.
“It is time to change this approach. For this, in this project the capacity building of the irrigators association is foreseen so that it understands the aspect of belonging,” said Fernando Namacua, indicating that the Government is only creating technical and institutional conditions for producers to produce in a context of fewer difficulties to achieve their objectives.
Paulo Brito, manager of the IRRIGA project, said the distribution to producers of agricultural inputs and transfer of production technologies were planned under this project. He explained that producers will be trained to improve the cultivation of land and pesticides will be distributed with a view to raising agricultural productivity levels per hectare
