Small Farms, Big Impact
Small farmers form the critical part of Mozambique’s Agricultural Marketing Campaign 2022-23
It is 4:00 a.m. on a wintery Saturday in the district of Limpopo, Gaza Province in Mozambique. Madalena João, a widow, wakes up her 16-year-old daughter and her pregnant daughter-in-law to get ready for farm work. João has four farms, each more than 2 hectares. The 58-year-old, who has never attended school, only knows farming. Unfortunately, she has had poor crop yields in recent years due to lack of rain. This year the rains were on time and she hopes for good crop. That’s why she needs the help of her family.
“The corn plants are already knee-high and we need to start weeding for them to grow well. We finally had rain this month and that’s why we need to take care of the plantation so that we have good production,” said
João, who has seven children, three stepchildren and five grandchildren, most of whom now have their own lives in urban areas.
In the past years, everything João produced was used to feed her family.
However, thanks to the implementation of the country’s Agricultural Marketing Campaigns, she has recently been able to sell a big part of what she produces and use the income to cover household expenses.
Sales channels
This campaign was introduced in 2020, as part of the Mozambican Government’s plans to encourage the involvement of all farmers, such as João, in the agrarian marketing process. The aim is to ensure that the crop production of the provinces finds placement channels in the market, both for commercial and family consumption.
João said the speech that Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi gave during the launch of the Agricultural Marketing Campaign 2022-23 motivated her, and she is now excited to be part of this campaign.
For her, this has been one of the best initiatives in the agricultural sector. For the first time in her life, she
The aim of the Agricultural Marketing Campaign is to ensure that the crop production of the provinces finds placement channels in the market, both for commercial and family consumption.