This information was contained in a report about activities in the district during the first quarter of this year, presented on Saturday to President Armando Guebuza.
The prices of agricultural products in Nhamatanda are fixed by the buyer, not by the seller, and most farmers feel that the prices are unfair.
"Currently, maize is being sold at between 2.5 and three meticais a kilo" reads the document (at current exchange rates, there are about 25.9 meticais to the US dollar)..
The maize being sold now is from the 2006 harvest. Only now have farmers started bringing in the 2007 harvest. The district authorities think that the good harvest from last year means that food security in Nhamatanda is guaranteed.
District administrator Paulo Majacunene told Guebuza that about 100,000 tonnes of assorted crops were harvested, on an area of about 43,000 hectares, in 2006. Of this sum, about half was sold, leaving 50,000 for the farmers to feed themselves and their families.
This year, however, nature intervened, and some 3,000 hectares of crops were destroyed by cyclone Favio which hit the province in late February.
Nhamatanda produces mainly maize, millet, rice (in small quantities), and vegetables,. "The cyclone destroyed mostly maize and millet, that were nearly ready for harvesting", said Majacunene.
Floods on the Pungue river early this year also affected the production of millet. "But even with these problems, the district does not suffer from hunger. Now the farmers are harvesting maize from this agricultural campaign and preparing for the next planting season", said Majacunene.
He attributed this success to the dedication of the farmers, and the role of community leaders who encourage them to extend their cultivated areas, and to adhere to good agricultural practices recommended by the government's rural extensionists.
SOURCE: AIM
