Luena – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) defends the reinforcement of incentives for family farming, with a view to contributing to the eradication of poverty and ensuring food and nutritional security in Angola.
According to the organization's assistant for the value chain, family farming and food security, Maria do Nascimento, investing in family farming is a sure and sustainable path to eradicating poverty and ensuring food and nutritional security for the population.
The official - who was speaking during a dialogue and public consultation workshop for the national family farming policy, which took place Thursday, in the city of Luena, Moxico province - said that families have assumed a “vital role” in the agricultural sector, hence the need to benefit from support and monitoring.
To her, agriculture in Moxico offers a unique opportunity to guarantee food security, improve family income and contribute to achieving sustainable development. She recalled that all the attention of the United Nations is focused on family farming, and in partnership with the Angolan government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, it is promoting reflection meetings, to find solutions and establish programs and initiatives to strengthen the sector.
In the same perspective, the director of the Provincial Office of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, António Maia Sandjesse, reiterated that 70 percent of Moxico's territory is arable, with abundant water resources that allow development in the agricultural, livestock, fishing, beekeeping and forestry.
More than 90 percent of the region's agricultural production is ensured by families, he said. The workshop served to ensure broad participation of the main actors in family farming, in the process of formulating proposals for a public policy instrument for family farming and responding to the challenges of this segment in the
National Agricultural Development Plan 2023-2027.
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