One hundred and thirty tons of wheat and 50 tons of fertilizer were supplied to the Municipal Administration of Ganda by the Ministry of Agriculture to supply more than a thousand registered producers to promote the cereal in the locality.
wheat and fertilizers, from the neighboring Republic of Namibia, to be distributed, free of charge, to one thousand and 18 producing families, registered by the Institute of Agrarian Development, as highlighted by the director of Agriculture, Kumandala José. In this context, the municipality distributes 130 tons of wheat seed and another 50 tons of fertilizers.
Director Kumandala makes it clear that the products are being delivered free of charge to promote production. The person responsible considers it to be of great value for the municipality to have available, within the scope of the ambitious Wheat Production Program, huge quantities of seeds with a view to promotion, with projections for the export of the product.
Production levels in 2023, in the order of 500 tons, are encouraging for the Local Administration, hence there is a strong focus on cereal production, especially in the commune of Chicuma, 75 kilometers from the municipal headquarters, with a history of this type of culture. For José Kumandala, global circumstances, associated with the war in Ukraine, have given a certain commercial value to wheat, so that, with a view to combating and preventing possible shortages, there is a strong focus on its cultivation, and, in this particular, the Ganda enters the range of producing regions, following Planagrão.
“Fortunately, in the commune of Chicuma there is fertile land suitable for wheat. We, at the municipality level, are focused on several areas. It’s not just wheat, wheat is one of the patents we have, we are producing Arabica coffee on a large scale. At the moment, here at headquarters, at the experimental station, we have 20 thousand seedlings”, reveals the head of the agricultural sector in the municipality of Ganda.
At that time, the batteries are essentially focused on wheat, especially the fields in the Chicuma commune, because the climate conditions in the region are favorable for the production of the cereal, which is why the 130 tons of seeds are all being destined to that location. José Kumandala reports that there are some businesspeople who have already expressed an interest in placing wheat production on the European market. To support his thesis, the person in charge reveals that a certain businessman, whose identity and company were not revealed, prepared an exhaustive project and sent it to the provincial authorities for this purpose.
“It is based on this project (sent to the municipality) that we will also have some synergies to then produce excessively to export the product. But, we already have many customers, many wheat buyers. So, in this case, we want to work, for the surplus we export. We want to make a change to reduce imports”, he launched the challenge. The official adds that, currently, the provinces of Huambo, Bié and Huíla, to name just these, are the main destinations for wheat produced in the fertile lands of Chicuma.
BY: Constantino Eduardo, in Benguela