Huambo - The executive administrator of the Agrarian Development Support Fund (FADA), Saidy Fernando, assured Friday that the institution is focused on mechanizing family farming in Angola.
Speaking at the end of the first training session on light mechanization of agricultural procedures, in Bailundo municipality, for 58 young people, the FADA representative said the goal is to increase under cultivation areas and create food security.
Saidy Fernando said the challenge is to turn rudimentary family farming into mechanized farming and increase agricultural production and productivity, as well as promoting agri-business.
He spoke of the need to set up a more qualified technical staff to assist and maintain light mechanized agriculture to bring these services closer to the communities with the highest production and avoid tractors distributed by the government to peasant and farmer cooperatives from being un-operational due to mechanical failures.
He explained that FADA invests around 10 billion Kwanzas a year to implement family farming mechanization program, which has been responsible for producing essential food for the Angolan population.
He said that the training served to provide the young people with knowledge on the specific technical assistance to tractors and power tillers, whose devices will gradually be inserted into the agricultural process of peasant families, with the aim to save effort and achieve satisfactory economic results for each agricultural season in the country.
The deputy governor for Political, Social and Economic sector of Huambo province, Angelino Elavoco, on his turn highlighted the need to focus on family farming, as it is the sector responsible for food production and creating more jobs.
Angelino Elavoco underscored that by promoting this training, farming families would have access to agricultural mechanization services and, consequently, the areas under cultivation would be expanded, with a positive impact on increased local production.
He said Huambo province has around 260,000 peasant families, whose land preparation methods are predominantly manual or animal-drawn, a process that needs to be changed in order to promote food security policies.
FADA said it plans to train 4,000 young people, over the next two years, in light agricultural mechanization techniques in eight of the country's 18 provinces. LT/JSV/ALH/AMP
