Ondjiva- At least 415 tons of cereal and legume seeds have been provided Monday in the southern Cunene Province by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to support farming families.
The seeds delivered as part of the 2022/2023 agricultural campaign benefited about 71,011 farmers from the six municipalities of the province.
Carlos Ndanyengondunge, director of the agriculture, cattle breeding and fisheries office, told ANGOP on Monday that from the seeds provided, 345 tons are of cereals such as sorghum
and wheat, and 70 tons of common beans and mung beans.
He said that the short vegetative cycle seeds were channelled to the Agrarian Development Stations (EDA), which later sent them to the respective farmers.
He informed that the Ministry of Agriculture provided short vegetative cycle seeds to deal with the drought situation in order to prevent losses in the production process.
Regarding fertilisers he said that 150 tonnes of NPK12-24-12 type fertilisers and 80 tonnes of ammonium sulphate were channelled, a quantity satisfactory for the demand.
He said that the fertilisers were allocated within the FADA (Fund for Support to Agricultural Development) programme, which is subsidising the purchase of fertilisers, where prices are subsidised with access to credit.
He revealed that the project only benefits the family sector, where a 50 kilogramme bag is being sold for just 5,000 kwanzas.
In terms of work tools he said that this year the province did not receive, although it was planned but did not reach the province.
According to the official, if weather conditions fall within normal limits a harvest of over 500,000 tons of various products may be expected, with emphasis on sorghum and sorghum, as they are the crops of choice in the region.
The official who is also an agricultural engineer added that despite the interruption of rains during February, if they are reactivated production may have its normal vegetative cycle.
“Right now we can make a normal assessment, because there is no water stress in the plants and as soon as the rains restart, they will be able to develop within normality”, he said.
A total of 160,030 families are involved in the agricultural campaign, a figure that is higher than the 147,021 that took part in the previous one, where 85 percent of agricultural production comes from the family sector.
He said that yields for the 2021/2022 farming season were around 70%, with a harvest of over 325,000 tonnes of cereals, pulses and pumpkins.
Carlos Ndanyengondunge considered that production was reasonable given the constraints, particularly weather conditions, where rainfall was below average.
