Wheat producers in the provinces of Huambo and Bié are focused on promoting and producing flour with the aim of “stopping” imports and, therefore, reducing the price of this raw material which, in recent months, has made bread more expensive. To this end, this year, 13 thousand hectares of land are being prepared in Huambo, while Bié will have 5 thousand hectares, from which a total of 51 thousand tons of wheat grains are expected to be removed.
To minimize the negative impact of the problem mentioned above, national seed and wheat producers have rolled up their sleeves and are investing in promoting this cereal that ensures the production of one of the most consumed foods in Angola — bread. Businessman Alfeio Vinevala, from Bié, a province that once had large-scale reindeer potato production as its flagship, intends to increase his wheat cultivation area to more than 5 thousand hectares, which corresponds to 15 thousand tons of product compared to 13 thousand cultivated last year. “The sowing of wheat grains will begin next February.
I will use all the fields where corn and soybeans were grown and we expect a harvest of around 15 thousand tons”, he detailed. The owner of Fazenda Vinevala e Filhos, located in the village of Eyumbi, municipality of Chinguar, defends more incentives for the production of wheat flour on a large scale, such as facilities for purchasing equipment, such as tractors, so that the country stops depending on of importing the product.
Alfeu Vinevala highlighted that the Ministry of Agriculture has given some moral incentive, through the family farming program, but it is not enough. For corporate agriculture, you need equipment and tractors that correspond to what the country wants to achieve. “We managed to produce wheat flour so that the country can no longer live off imports, but we need support because there are many entrepreneurs involved, we just don’t have the means to produce it,” he said.
For the producer, the Executive must stop importing this product and pay greater attention to producers in order to change the situation for the better, highlighting that producers have experience in agriculture and the country has arable land. Last year, in July, the businessman harvested a total of 13 thousand tons of wheat produced in a space of three thousand hectares. As a result of the investments made, the harvest of the current agricultural season will be completely transformed into wheat flour in the factory on that farm, unlike previous years, in which the entire harvest was made available to the market for sale.
According to the producer, the industrial unit at Fazenda Vinevala e Filhos has the capacity to transform 30 tons of wheat into flour per day. The industrial unit, according to Afeio Vinevala, will also serve to support other wheat producers in Bié, who do not have the capacity to carry out this transformation.
In his opinion, the implementation of the processing unit, which will add capabilities to the farm’s agricultural production, is also promoting the promotion of employability in the municipality of Chinguar. It should be noted that the country imported, last year, 600 thousand tons of wheat flour for grinding, as it had a production level below 20 thousand tons.