Eradicating food insecurity remains a challenge in Mozambique, writes BILL CORCORANin Maputo
MOZAMBIQUE’S government has decided to hike food and fuel prices in the coming months but will offer other aid to the poor in the hope of avoiding a repeat of last year’s deadly riots in Maputo or north Africa-style protests.
Fuel prices will revert to market levels when subsidies are phased out this month, but students and workers will receive transport passes instead, Antonio Cruz of Mozambique’s planning ministry said last week.
Subsidies on bread and rice will end in June. However, families earning less than about $2 a day – 90 per cent of Mozambicans – will be able to buy basic foods at reduced prices in certain shops, he added.
“These protests [last September in Maputo] are a sign that the cost of living is very high. It is an international crisis that is also influencing what is happening in North Africa,” he said.
Despite rapid economic growth over the past 15 years that has propelled it into the world’s top 10 fastest-growing economies, eradicating food insecurity in Mozambique remains a challenge.
In February, the government warned that food security needed to be “deeply improved”, following the release of a survey that revealed 37 per cent of all households experience hunger during the year.
Mozambique’s impressive economic development since the mid-1990s can, for the most part, be attributed to two factors: its potential for catch-up growth from a low post-civil war base; and the desire of multinational companies to cash in on its untapped natural resources.
Mega-projects established to exploit oil, gas and minerals have bolstered the economy on a macro level over the past 10 years, but for most ordinary Mozambicans life has remained harsh.
Food security progress has been made, but new challenges have also emerged, with global warming and globalisation increasingly shaping this country’s fragile future.
While always afflicted by droughts, floods and storms, Mozambique’s weather patterns have become more erratic recently. This is adversely affecting the local food production system.
With the world’s major food production belts also devastated by unseasonal weather over the past 24 months, the prices of imported commodities have also begun to rise, leaving people few options when it comes to acquiring affordable food.
In September last year the government was forced into making a U-turn on its decision to stop subsidising fuel and bread when riots in Maputo erupted over the plan. At least 10 people died and hundreds were injured.
Maputo resident Ricardina Fenuaudo Machaies said that most people in the capital cannot afford fish, meat and chicken. So when the price of staple foods began to increase “people felt betrayed by the government”.
“Life is difficult at the moment because food is very expensive . . . So the poor decided it was time to show the government they were not happy,” she explained.
Mozambique’s difficulties have been compounded by the global economic recession. The downturn has made it hard for donor countries and aid agencies to maintain the level of budgetary support they have provided in the past.
The state-controlled Noticias reported in February the government was facing a €1.4 billion shortfall this year in its budget, of which 44 per cent comes from overseas aid.
While the situation outside the capital during last September’s riots remained calm, food security in rural areas is also precarious, according to Marcela Libombo, an official with the department of agriculture’s disaster management secretariat.
A 2009 nationwide study recently released by her department found that while food security had generally improved, problems persist in relation to food use, trading, sanitation and nutritional education.
The survey identified 281,300 people suffering from severe food insecurity in 32 districts of eight provinces, and recommended humanitarian assistance up to March this year, and interventions to tackle food shortages.
“The rural people in Mozambique face many challenges when it comes to ensuring they have enough food to eat, not least because our country is incredibly prone to natural disasters that can devastate crops. In a good year we have at least one and in a bad year that rises to six or seven.
“But the reality is our northern provinces grow plenty of food. The main problems we have relate to storage and transport infrastructure.
In the past farmers have reported losing 30 to 40 per cent of their crop, especially maize, because of an inability to get crops to markets down south and a lack of storage silos,” she explained.
Because of this, a practice has emerged where following the harvest, small-scale farmers in the north often sell their crop excesses to people in neighbouring Malawi and Zimbabwe, because they are afraid if they do not, it will rot.
Then, later in the year when their own stocks deplete, they are forced to buy food back from their neighbours at high prices.
While communities try to look out for their vulnerable members, and remittances sent home from abroad play a supportive role, the government is also improving the safety net system for those in need. “A system of cash transfer has been piloted in Mozambique with NGOs like Save the Children,” said Libombo, “whereby when natural disasters and food insecurity occur we try to mitigate their effect with money rather than food aid.”
“If a family qualifies after being evaluated they get between $100 and $200 from donors or government to get them through the lean period. In return they must ensure things like their children go to school and get health checks,” she said.
Although the road infrastructure in Mozambique has improved dramatically in recent years, with a decent highway now stretching from Maputo in the south to Pemba in the north – some 2,000km – the lack of capable transport companies is another problem.
Their absence has led to a rather perverse situation in which huge amounts of harvested fruits deposited by the side of the road for transportation to Maputo, rot in the stifling heat before they can be collected.
Food security: weather alarms
LAST FEBRUARY world food prices rose to record levels due to a wave of natural disasters in 2010 that hit the major grain producing countries of Canada, Russia and Australia.
According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, in the past 12 months wheat has risen by as much as 58 per cent, corn by 87 per cent and rice 6.5 per cent. Bad weather has been the main culprit. Countries like Russia, which experienced its worst drought in half a century, has banned the export of wheat.
The UN has said it expects commodity prices to continue to rise, with the world's rapidly expanding population – it could reach nine billion people by 2050 – and its increasing energy needs contributing factors.
The increase in international food and fuel prices affected the Mozambican market so dramatically because its agriculture sector experienced skewed weather patterns in 2010.
Although rainfall was fine in the north, it was late and negligible in the south and central regions.
As a result, maize production increased by 12 per cent in the north from the previous year, but fell in the south and central regions.
This article was researched with the support of the Simon Cumbers Media Fund