THE AGRICULTURE SECTOR PERFORMANCE IN MOZAMBIQUE

Abstract

This paper sets out to analyse and present trends in agriculture sector performance in Mozambique for the period 2000 – 2013 (with particular attention paid to the last three to four years of the said period). In the quest to attain this aim the paper empirically focuses on the significance of charting the performance of the sector against the baseline sectoral performance targets enlisted in the PNISA, CAADP Framework and SADC RISDP. There are ten key performance indicators that the paper delves ascertain the performance of the agriculture sector. The performance of this sector is pivotal because in Mozambique the agriculture sector is vital for economic development (contributes more than 20% to the GDP) also in meeting the Millennium Development Goal I (MDG I). The trend analysis led to the following main findings; the growth in agricultural GDP and the annual GDP growth of the country surpassed the CAADP target of 6% annual growth despite the fact that Government of Mozambique has vehemently failed to substantially invest in the agriculture sector to meet the CAADP 10% target of the total budget to agriculture. Agriculture productivity (land and labour productivity) in Mozambique is quite low, it is even lower than the average of the Low-Income countries in the region henceforth, the country has however been struggling to meet the agriculture production performance indicators. This is noted by the country's failure to meet both the SADC RISDP and Abuja Declaration fertilizer use targets of 50kg/ha and 65kg/ha respectively and the failure to meet the SADC RISDP irrigation target of doubling the area under irrigation to 7%. Consequently the country has failed to meet the SADC RISDP cereal production target of 2000kg/ha. The analysis also depict that the country has failed to meet the SADC RISDP livestock annual growth target of 4%. The implications of these failures have a significant bearing on the country's battle to offset poverty; the country's GHI is still alarming and the proportion of the population below the minimum dietary energy consumption is still high (41% on average) whilst the MDG I target stands at 28%. The major deduction from these findings is that there is a need for more concerted efforts in Mozambique to increase and refine agricultural growth investments; this can be carried out efficiently operationalising the PNISA to achieve the PEDSA, SADC RISDP and CAADP objectives.