MOZAMBIQUE— Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi, has inaugurated a maize processing plant in the northern city of Nampula with a processing capacity of 24,400 tonnes of maize a year.
Nyusi announced that in the 2021/2022 agricultural year, maize production had risen by 30 per cent, the greatest leap in production in recent years. Production reached 2.4 million tonnes, compared with 1.8 million tonnes the previous year.
He told the inauguration ceremony that maize could also transform the lives of Mozambicans, through the agro-processing industry. Prices of maize at the farm gate had fallen to an average of less than 11.5 meticais (about 18 US cents) a kilo, he said, “and this has been one of the main factors in stimulating investment in the agro-processing of maize in Mozambique”.
This is the second maize processing factory to open in Nampula in the space of two years, Nyusi recalled. The first was inaugurated in Malema district in 2021, financed though the government’s flagship agricultural development police, “Sustenta”.
The new factory cost 128 million meticais (around two million dollars), and can process the surplus maize production from about 60,000 small producers.
maize can transform the lives of Mozambicans, not only because of its calorific value as food, but also through the agro-processing industry
The country has also been ramping up its processing capacity for other food commodities. President Nyusi also recently inaugurated a state-of-the-art vegetable oil factory in the city of Cuamba, highlighting it will beef up local availability of the highly sort after vegetable oil and will replace import of the commodity with a direct impact on the country’s balance of trade.
The country’s largest and most modern meat processing unit has also recently begun operations in the western city of Tete. The facility is fashioned with state-of-the-art equipment that will ensure it meets the highest standards of international certification for slaughter, processing, and conservation thus opening up prospects of export of quality meat to international markets.
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