Farmers encouraged to diversify crops

With 590,000 people said to need food aid due to drought, it has been suggested that sorghum could replace maize as the staple crop in the semi-arid southern and central areas of Mozambique. Due to insufficient rain in the southern and central regions, crop production fell dramatically this year. "In the affected areas, a drop of more than 60 percent of the total expected output of cereals and grains is due to drought. Yields were down all over the southern region and parts of the central region. The government estimates that 60,000 hectares yielded less than 10 percent of their usual output," said a World Food Programme (WFP) fact sheet on food shortages in Mozambique. With this in mind the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) held a conference with the theme "Semi-arid areas of Mozambique, Maize or Sorghum" on 5 December, the latest UN Mozambique Humanitarian Situation Monitor reported. "Southern and central Mozambique is semi-arid and the sandy soils do not provide the conditions for intensive cultivation of staple crops. In fact, this part of the country is better for extensive livestock breeding. From 1890-1940 sorghum was gradually substituted by maize in these regions," the Monitor said. There had recently been a trend towards reintroduction of sorghum to promote resilience to drought. However, while sorghum resisted drought "a little bit better than maize", it was not a completely drought resistant crop. "Sorghum can resume growth after a relatively prolonged dry period, but it does have several disadvantages: it has a long growing period of up to 130 days and has high demands on soil fertility and moisture; sorghum is quite labour intensive, [for example] it requires constant bird control for two months, whereas maize needs no watching and often only one hoeing," the Monitor reported. One of the most important considerations with regard to replacing maize with sorghum was economic. "When maize was introduced as a staple crop, it went hand in hand with steady market prices and an unlimited demand on the market as [an] export crop for Europe," but this was not the case with sorghum, the FAO conference noted. It was concluded that sorghum was not "necessarily the ideal alternative to maize" in the semi-arid regions. "The best solution will be to identify patches with the right conditions for either maize or sorghum, respectively. The success of the introduction of any new crop will depend on the prevailing economic and marketing prospects," the Monitor reported. The FAO underlined the importance of agriculture to Mozambique, saying it provided livelihoods to 80 percent of the population. "With regard to the drought, the FAO estimates were that 36,000 families, later revised to 28,080, were in need of support in the form of agricultural inputs, mainly seeds, and other forms of immediate support. So far only one of the high priority projects: the one aiming at urgent rehabilitation [of] existing small-scale irrigation schemes has received funding. The other interventions are still awaiting support," the Monitor noted. The 590,000 people who would require food aid at the peak of the crisis represented about three percent of the total population, WFP said. The cereal food aid requirement was estimated at 49,275 mt from September to March 2003, the monthly requirement was 7,900 mt over this period.