Africa-Press – Angola. The development plan for wheat, rice, soy and corn – “Planagrão”, expects to produce, from 2027, six million tons of these cereals per year, said this Tuesday the Secretary of State for the Economy, Ivan dos Santos.
At a time when the country produces about 3.14 million tons of grain per year, the Executive’s strategic plan, Planagrão, which begins to be carried out in the first quarter of next year, in the east of the country, aims at the annual harvest of more than six million tons of grain.
This activity will initially be carried out in the four eastern provinces of the country, namely Moxico, Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul and Cuando Cubango, in an area of two million hectares, at a global cost estimated at 1.6 billion kwanzas.
To this end, the Angolan government, via the Development Bank of Angola (BDA) and the Activo Fund for Angolan Risk Capital (Facra), will finance private producers, national and foreign, in the next five-year period 2023/2027.
In this sense, the Secretary of State said that from the first quarter of 2023, interested grain farmers will be able to submit their projects to the BDA and Facra, through the technical office of Planagrão.
At first, explained the person in charge, the processes will go through the technical unit of Planagrão, which will carry out the assessment of the project’s conformity to subsequently forward it to the bank.
The plan, based on 10 structuring axes, provides for interested parties to submit their proposals without limits on projects and credit amounts, that is, defined by the size of the project in question.
Of the global amount for financing (1.6 billion kwanzas), around 1.5 million will be operated by BDA and the remainder by FACRA.
According to the leader, Planagrão will have two million hectares for the four provinces and as it is extended to other locations in the country, the area of action will proportionally increase.
According to Ivan dos Santos, the objectives of the Planagrão involve promoting large-scale production of wheat, rice, soy and corn, improving soil productivity and profitability, increasing the number of agricultural entrepreneurs and employment, promoting value chain and guarantee a fixed income to producers.
The objectives also include the scientific training of agronomists in the production of grains and fertilizers, contributing to the diversification of exports, increasing Angola’s resilience to external shocks, as well as the country’s food self-sufficiency.
Technical and transport network infrastructure
On the means of communication – roads, the Secretary of State for the Economy said that there is a conjunction with the Public Investment Program (PIP) that will carry out the construction of 13 thousand kilometers of road, only in the corridor of these four pilot provinces of Planagrão .
“In each space designated for the development of Planagrão, the Government will connect its access to the main roads, in a public investment of around 1.1 billion kwanzas”, asserted the official.
In the same sense, PIP will build the infrastructure of the technical network to distribute energy and water to each of Planagrão’s producers.
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