Humpata - Four million and 500 thousand dollars were invested from 2018 to the present date, in the creation of 556 Farmer Field Schools, for the benefit of 20,832 farmers in the municipalities of Cacula, Caluquembe, Caconda, Chicomba and Chipindo, in the province of Huíla.
These schools were created within the scope of the Family Development and Commercialization Project (SAMAP), an initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, implemented by the Institute of Agrarian Development (IDA).
SAMAP is funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Angolan Government and is being implemented in the provinces of Huíla and Cuanza Sul with five municipalities each.
Turning to the institutional and financing components, the global value for the two provinces is 38 million dollars, of which 28 million come from IFAD, 8.2 million from the Government of Angola and 1.1 million from the beneficiaries' contribution, which involves local resources and labor, which will be implemented until September of the current year.
The objective is to increase productivity and improve the commercialization of family farming, especially in selected crops in the project areas, including corn, beans, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and cabbage.
Speaking this Monday to ANGOP, in Humpata, on the sidelines of the provincial meeting to evaluate the project, the coordinator of SAMAP in Huíla, Eugénio Chiliva, highlighted that at the provincial level 39 “masters” from Farmer Field Schools, 515 facilitators who are members and who pass on knowledge to the community.
Accordingly, said the source, the municipality of Caluquembe benefited the most schools, with 165, followed by Caconda with 129, Cacula with 114, Chicomba with 81 and Chipindo with 57, which help with rural extension and obtaining agricultural surpluses.
According to Eugénio Chiliva, Farmer Field Schools are a component of rural extension, a methodology that small farmers use to adopt agricultural practices, aiming to make the most of space, producing more to obtain surpluses.
In them, he explained, farmers learn subjects linked to seed selection, correct sowing spacing, cross-cutting issues linked to gender, education, health and nutrition.
He highlighted that the SAMAP project at Huíla level expects to reach 30,000 families, of which 21,832 are already benefiting from agricultural inputs, small traction equipment for more than 150 tons of corn seeds, 139 tons of beans, 600 tons of fertilizers, between compound and simple, 600 plows, ten carts and more than 20 motor pumps.
In the same period, 38 associations for cooperatives with three thousand 367 members were legalized and in the second phase, which runs until September, a further 41 cooperatives will be legalized, in a partnership with Rural Development and Environment Action (ADRA).
He highlighted that in terms of harvests the results are “encouraging”, for example, two years ago there was a drought and they still had a successful case, in Caluquembe, in which a school harvested three tons from one hectare.
In the field schools that benefited from agricultural inputs, said the technician, today they already have grinding machines, which reduces the women's effort to prepare cornmeal; they built warehouses, because the seeds that are delivered are not reimbursed to the IDA, but conserved at the level of these communities.
He said that surpluses at this point are being sold to reinforce community funds so they can have financial and food resources for self-sufficiency. BP/MS/DOJ
