Manica's provincial director of Agriculture and Fisheries, Ernesto Lopes, has guaranteed that the sector he heads has already drawn up a contingency plan to provide assistance to families affected by the heavy rains recorded during the passage of tropical cyclone Freddy through that central region of our country.

"We need five tons of seeds. We've sat down with our partners and there are already some solutions in sight. To do this, we need 270,000 kilos of various seeds, including cereals and vegetables, because we know that we are now entering the second sowing season and the strong point is vegetable production," he said.

Other needs include 135 sweet potato branches and 55,000 cassava cuttings.

The source said that the process is facing some difficulties in reaching the Tambara district to deliver some seed kits and some equipment for the farmers to start launching their production, due to the degradation of the access roads.

The source stressed that for this year the authorities are projecting a production of 4.3 million tons of various crops, in an area of 1.2 million hectares.