Africa-Press – Cape verde. The need for financial support with strategic lines of credit for agriculture “is essential” to develop the “huge capacity” of the sector, revealed to Inforpress Adilson Melício, engineer/farmer, close to reaching 400 tons/year of fruits and vegetables.
“But I don’t want free money, I want to pay my money ”, he told Inforpress, when we met him at his property, in Ribeira de Vinhas, a 50-hectare stretch of land (enough space to build 50 football pitches). ), in the middle of vast areas of open-air plantations, greenhouses and desalination plants.
By mid-2024, the company he created, Agro Soluções, plans to place 400 tons of fruits and vegetables on the market, such as papaya, banana, cucumber, lettuce, melon, watermelon and tomato, that is, 80 percent (%) of the promise made in February 2022 when it initialed a protocol with the US Embassy.
“ What we need in this area is simply financial support with strategic lines of credit for the sector, very well designed, not lines of credit common to all ”, he specified, since the sector has its specificity and governments will have to work on sense of creating incentives.
According to Inforpress, Melício points out that it could be an agricultural credit bank, “which already exists, for example, very close by, in Senegal”, but, he continued, even if it is not a bank, it is a line of credit in which the Government supports with special conditions for farmers.
“ We here have enormous capacity, but we mainly need support in financial policies for the sector ”, reinforced the agricultural engineer, who states that São Vicente, due to its intrinsic potential and with more people investing in the sector, could become the “largest agricultural island” in Cape Verde.
“ The island has free space, State land, in which companies can invest, as long as they are properly supported” , he stated, at the same time as he revealed a dream.
“ My dream is to be able to desalinate seawater, on a scale of four thousand cubic meters of water/day, produce and export to the domestic and foreign markets ”, he announced, in large-scale production, not only in São Vicente, but in Porto Novo or Tarrafal de Santiago, for example.
Arid areas, the same source continued, have “ enormous potential ” to produce on a “ large scale and with great quality ”, based on the desalination of sea water, through combined wind and solar energy.
And he gives the example of a species of papaya that currently produces, with a level of production “equal to any other place”, such as the Canary Islands, Brazil or Costa Rica, in terms of quality and productivity per square meter, and also prices practiced abroad, Portugal , like a kilogram of papaya for 5 euros or passion fruit, “which is considered weeding here” , for 17 euros.
“In this area, in fact, the biggest challenges are the initial investments, but as long as they are made with technology, and I am speaking as an agronomist, the sky is the limit, you can do anything”, summarized Adilson Melício, to Inforpress . Photos: Cultivation field owned by engineer Melício and another group of owners from Ribeira de Vinha.
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