Caxito - The Minister of State for Economic Coordination, José de Lima Massano, on Thursday in Panguila District, northern Bengo Province, said that the government will have around 20,000 tonnes of grain in stock by the end of this year to guarantee chicken production in Angola.
He stressed that due to a shortfall in the production of maize and soya, the warehouse, which manages the food reserve, will also reserve these products so that when there is a shortfall in supply it can intervene and guarantee stability, without jeopardising what producers can do.
The commitment is one of the results of the meeting he held behind closed doors with members of the Angolan Poultry Farmers Association and the National Chicken Consortium, at the Filomena farm in Panguila.
Speaking to the press, the Minister of State said that it had also been decided to set up an observatory to monitor the implementation of this and other measures, in which the ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the ministry of Industry and Trade, as well as the two associations would have a regular space to monitor the implementation of the measures, measure the impact and make corrections in good time.
He added that in summary the meeting aimed to bring producers closer together, after identifying at the first meeting in Luanda that the production of maize and soya had a major impact on the cost of animal feed.
The associations of poultry farmers and agricultural producers reached an understanding, and a partnership will be created so that, with prices stabilised, there will be a regular supply and predictability of feed production and security for poultry producers.
According to the minister, it was also agreed that, with the support mechanisms for financing national production, specific lines would be made available for chicken production in Angola.
On the other hand, he said he was pleased to see that there were people who were “very interested, dedicated, knowledgeable and motivated to make things happen”, so he left a note of recognition and happiness for the work that the Filomena farm has been doing, extended to all the producers.
He emphasised that after visiting the farm, he left convinced that the country is taking steps in the right direction.
In turn, the chairman of the Angola Agricultural Association (AAPA), Vanderlei Ribeiro, highlighted the fact that the meeting between the associations and the government was aimed at joining forces for a common cause.
The official stressed that the difficulties experienced in the poultry sector in producing chicken meat were related to the production of raw materials for poultry, namely corn and soya, and that the two associations needed to look at the problem more clearly.
In this regard, the AAPA in particular, as the representative of medium and large-scale grain producers, put forward proposals on how access to raw materials could be made cheaper, because the difficulty of producing feed at a good price is linked to the cost of production.
They proposed the need to standardise prices, which could be through the intervention of the REA (Strategic Food Reserve) to allow access to inputs, maize and soya at a lower price.
According to the association leader, the government believes that the measure should be more sustainable and a specific intervention could perhaps create some deviation in the market, which is why there was a compromise.
In this sense, poultry producers are committed to rehabilitating their production units and the government, through the strategic reserve, will make raw materials available for meat production, with the need being for around 20,000 tonnes of corn and 10,000 tonnes of soybean meal, to be delivered by the end of this year to encourage poultry production from 2025 onwards.
To Sidney Ferreira, administrator of the Filomena farm, the visit allowed the Minister of State to have contact with the poultry production sector at industrial level and to see the start of work with broiler chickens.
The Filomena Farm is expected to slaughter 30,000 chickens a week in the first phase, which starts at the end of November this year, while in the second phase, scheduled for the end of 2025, it will double to 60,000 birds a week
In relation to feed, the production capacity is 480 tonnes daily, both for layers (birds that lay eggs) and broilers, while for eggs the production capacity is 1,100,000 per day.
Fazenda Filomena is an agricultural company dedicated to raising poultry, producing eggs, animal feed and organic fertiliser.
PA/MRA/jmc
