Africa-Press – Angola. The Huíla agricultural company specialized in the production of Jardins da Yoba seeds announced yesterday, in Lubango, a 31 percent growth in the corn harvest in the 2021/2022 Agricultural Campaign, in plantations in the municipalities of Chibia and Humpata, an additional 540 tons that in the previous period
The director general of Jardins da Yoba, João Saraiva, who provided the information, said that, after the company started producing maize seeds in 2017, it had accumulated harvests of 5,565 tons, which tends to increase with the start of harvests on farms in the municipality of Matala (Huíla) and Cahama (Cunene).
Jardins da Yoba combines the production of maize seeds with that of reindeer potato, which in the Agricultural Campaign that ends in August recorded harvests of 900 tons on the farms of Humpata and Chibia, an annual growth of 60 tons.
Corn production has been on the rise, as a result of the installation of systems for capturing, storing and supplying water that the company undertakes to face the drought periods that have been occurring in the South for years.
The director-general indicated that, as a result of this strategy, the corn harvest went from 300 tons in 2017 to 1,740 this year, below the planned production of five thousand tons in 2025, in addition to the projection of three thousand tons of corn. potato seeds. The company also introduced and is already multiplying the variety of hybrid maize for victim A, from which 20 tons have already been harvested, available for sale.
The production of reindeer potato, he said, increased from 350, in 2017, to 900 tons, with increasing rates every year, until reaching the goal of more than 1,000 tons next season.
The production of reindeer potato, he noted, is carried out throughout the year, as is stock and conservation.
João Saraiva considered that the campaign was difficult and with many challenges because of the drought, which forced him to create a different strategy than normal. “We had more irrigation and costs, but luckily we were accompanied by a positive evolution of production”, he said.
In the 2021/2022 Agricultural Campaign, 200 tons of massango were also harvested, already in stock, and 100 tons of massambala, quantities considered still low.
To face the drought, Jardins da Yoba invested “strongly” in the installation of irrigation pivots, with which, in the agricultural year about to end, it managed to reach more than 500 irrigated hectares for corn and 200 hectares for potatoes. -general announced that, for the next year, the goal is to reach 700 hectares in corn multiplication operations. “The objective is to make the production of cereals and tubers permanent and diversified”, he clarified.
Jardins da Yoba operates, in 1,020 hectares, the farms: Mucuma, Yoba, Chaungo and Maheque, located in Chibia and Humpata, in Huíla. Production is carried out by 300 permanent workers and 800 seasonal workers, who are employed during the harvests.
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