Dans les coulisses

Cassava Development Strategy for Mozambique
June 2008

Engineer Jaime Nicols is the National Director of Trade at the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Mozambique.

Luisa Patrocinio is a Programme Officer at the FAO Representation Office in Mozambique.

Background

Recognizing that cassava has a great, largely untapped, potential to stimulate economic growth and improve the livelihoods of poor farm households, Mozambique's Government requested FAO's assistance in formulating a Development Strategy for the Cassava Subsector.

LP:
Why is a cassava strategy necessary?
JN:
In its Agricultural Marketing Strategy, the Ministry of Industry and Trade identified cassava as one of the products for which Mozambique enjoys a comparative advantage. After all, cassava has always been one of Mozambique's most important staple food crops and contributes significantly to ensuring food security.

The Ministry thus decided to prepare a cassava development strategy in collaboration with several institutions that are members of the Cassava Working Group. The strategy includes a follow-up action plan.

“ For example, cassava can be transformed into high quality flour that can substitute up to 10% of the wheat flour used in producing bread. This could reduce high wheat import costs and provide an economic incentive for the growth of domestic urban and semi-urban markets. ”

The action plan, which includes both short and long-term objectives, clearly shows how each economic sector can specifically intervene at each stage of the cassava value chain, from research to marketing. This integrated approach should result in:

- increasing the production and competitiveness of Mozambican cassava; and

- making cassava an instrument for tackling hunger and alleviating the poverty of small farm owners by creating new marketing and income opportunities.

LP:
What are the main conclusions of the strategy?

JN:
The strategy will maximize the enormous food security potential that cassava offers. It aims at increasing production volumes to a level that justifies more efficient marketing operations. It also aims at increasing the volume of industrially processed cassava-derived products, exploiting its great potential as a basic raw material.

For example, cassava can be transformed into high quality flour that can substitute up to 10% of wheat flour used in producing bread. This could reduce high wheat import costs and provide an economic incentive for the growth of domestic urban and semi-urban markets.

LP:
What are the next steps?

JN:
The first step will be to widely disseminate the strategy and action plan and make sure that everyone involved in the cassava value chain starts to implement them. We will thus organize a national conference in July 2008 to launch the strategy and distribute informational material in the provinces. The media, social communication partners and others with an active economic and social interest in this issue will be involved.

The second step will be to encourage private investors - who have already demonstrated great interest - to go into the cassava business. We will thus organize an investment meeting with participants from the private sector, key public institutions, and national and international development partners.

LP:
What does the government expect to achieve? What impact will the strategy have?

JN:
In the short term, the government has already accepted the strategy as an instrument that will:
- contribute to improving food security; and
- create more agricultural production and marketing opportunities in rural areas with the ultimate goal of reducing poverty.

Thus, it will already have an impact on cassava production, marketing and consumption in rural and urban areas.

The Ministry of Agriculture has begun identifying farmers' associations that would benefit from:
- support to produce an improved variety of cassava; and
- intermediate technologies for milling cassava and processing flour.

Producers are being trained to improve cassava production in the provinces of Inhambane, Nampula, Zambézia and Cabo Delgado. Contact has been made with agro-industries (mills) and bakeries regarding the use of cassava as a raw material for the production of (mixed) bread flour.

The whole process will also benefit from the support that FAO has provided. In fact, FAO recently approved a technical assistance project to improve the production and quality of cassava as a response, from the supply side, to rising food prices.