Rural Mozambique since the Frelimo Party fourth congress: the situation in the Baixo Limpopo

Abstract

which South Africa's war of destabilization has precipitated in the country. At the Fourth Congress Frelimo recognized that unless immediate measures were taken to harness the productive potential of peasant and capitalist agriculture - a potential which had been largely neglected in favour of collective forms of production - the country would face a steadily worsening economic situation, with serious implications for Frelimo's base of popular support and for the conduct of the war against the South African sponsored terrorists of the Mozambique National Resistance (MNR). By turning to a more market oriented agricultural strategy, Frelimo hopes to correct the economic imbalances that have resulted from past policy errors and to induce capitalist and peasant producers to substantially increase their marketed agricultural output, thereby putting the country on a stronger productive footing, the better to resist South African aggression and ride out the economic crisis this aggression has precipitated.