Chinese agricultural projects help tackle food deficit in Mozambique

MAPUTO - Despite possessing arable land the size of Germany, abundant water resources, and a favorable climate, the southern African country of Mozambique is still plagued by a food shortage.

Constrained by its primitive farming techniques, annual domestic food production in Mozambique is 300,000 tons of grain short of what its population needs.

However, the arrival of Chinese companies, with their advanced agricultural technologies and projects, has helped to make a change.

Agricultural cooperation between China and Mozambique started as early as 2007, when the first batch of agricultural technology demonstration centers were established. They were also the first of its kind in Africa.

Since then, the Chinese have been providing modern farming technologies as well as expertise to the southern African country.

According to preliminary planting trials by Chinese specialists, the local warm and humid climate and fertile black soil is very suitable for rice growing.

In 2011, Wanbao Grains and Oils, an agricultural product processing company based in Xiangyang, China's Hubei Province, established a large-scale rice farm on 20,000 hectares in Gaza Province of Mozambique.

In less than three years, a total of nearly 200 million U.S. dollars have been invested in the project, mainly in infrastructure construction, machinery and equipment procurement, irrigation and electricity.

Currently, the farm is approaching the end of its harvest period, with an estimated average of more than 7,500 kilograms of rice per hectare on the several thousand hectares so far planted.

The whole 20,000 hectares is expected to be fully developed in the next two years.

Chinese agricultural companies have also provided training to local farmers, raising their per hectare rice yields from 1,500-2,250 kilograms of rice per hectare to 6,500 kilograms.

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza has visited Wanbao three times in the past two years, praising China's contribution to the country's agriculture development and its boost to local employment.

Sergio Chichava, a researcher at Mozambique's Institute of Social and Economic Studies, told Xinhua that, if things went well, the Chinese projects could help solve the country's food crisis.