Bailundo – The Minister of Agriculture and Forestry (MINAGRIF), António Francisco de Assis, stated on Monday, in Huambo province, that Angola needs to produce at least 600,000 tons of wheat/year, to reduce imports of this cereal.
The government official was speaking at the beginning of the wheat harvest campaign, which took place on the Luvili farm, Luvemba commune, Bailundo municipality, in the presence of the governor of Huambo province, Lotti Nolika, and senior MINAGRIF officials.
He expressed satisfaction with the harvest indicators intended to be achieved, two years after the relaunch of this crop in the country.
The minister said that if a harvest of about 80,000 tons is reached, it will be quite satisfactory, due to the few inputs available and distributed to farmers and peasant families, mainly in the provinces of Benguela, Bié, Huambo, Huíla and Malanje.
He considered the results still very small, compared to the path that has to be taken, as in the relaunch, many were “skeptical”, but MINAGRIF accepted the challenge.
Therefore, it announced greater scope in wheat production during the 2024/2025 agricultural season, taking into account the country's potential in this field. He highlighted that, despite the difficulties with wheat seeds, the peasant families, some with a little more than one hectare, did their best and the results are positive and encouraging to continue on this path, at a time when the process counts on the involvement of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the business and family sectors.
More fertilizers for next season
António Francisco de Assis said that the ministry acquired nearly seven thousand tons of fertilizers to allow peasants and farmers in the provinces of Bié and Huambo to begin cultivation at the beginning of September.
He added that the governments of the two provinces are entering into contacts with the management of the Benguela Railway (CFB) to transport the goods, so that peasants and farmers have access to fertilizers at prices subsidized by the State. For his part, the manager of the Luvili agricultural farm, José Eduardo, said that the production, in an area of 20 hectares, included, through an experimental partnership, the involvement of 125 peasant families.
He said that the farm's management, staffed by 95 workers, plans to encourage farming families to invest more in the cultivation of wheat, soybeans and beans, as they are high-yield crops. In the province of Huambo, more than 600 hectares of land were cultivated for wheat production, with a harvest forecast of close to 600 tons, for the family sector, as well as the involvement of 437 business producers.
During his stay in the municipality of Bailundo, in the northern corridors of the province of Huambo, the Minister of Agriculture and Forests led the opening ceremony of the first itinerant course on the representation and maintenance of agricultural equipment, aimed at 60 agricultural technicians from the 11 municipalities of this region of the Central Plateau. At another time, he distributed motor-cultivators and other agricultural instruments to the Mbalundo Kingdom cooperative, to increase production and productivity, focusing on planting fruit trees and growing corn, beans and vegetables.
The government official's visit schedule to Huambo, which began on Sunday with an observation visit to the works of the future Center for Bio-veterinary and Animal Vaccine Production, foresees, for Tuesday, a trip to the municipality of CaálaAngola needs to produce more than 600,000 tons of wheat.
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