The success achieved, in recent times, through the "Sustenta" program, makes the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Celso Correia, believe that in the next five years the country will be self-sufficient in rice production. Celso Correia was speaking this Wednesday, in Chókwè, Gaza province, during the re-inauguration of a rice processing plant with a capacity of 60 thousand tons per year.

This is the Chókwè Agro-Industrial Complex (CAIC), an infrastructure that comprises rice, cashew nut and tomato processing units.

On Tuesday, the rice processing unit was re-inaugurated, an investment that cost one million meticais.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Celso Correia, presided over the ceremony and started up the machines. The leader visited the facilities and verified how the whole chain works, from the unloading of rice from the fields to the bagging.

In his speech, the governor highlighted that the reopening of that unit is the realization of an old dream.

"We witnessed the start of the rumbling of the engines of the rice processing machines. This is a plant that has been closed for more than four years, for various reasons. This moment represents the awakening of a sleeping monster. We made an investment of around 600 million meticais in the Chókwè Irrigation, which allowed us to increase the production in the order of 20 thousand tons of rice in this campaign, where we extended the production to five thousand new hectares", introduced the leader quoted by "O País", to then highlight the relevance of mechanization in the production processes, as a way to maximize the gains with agriculture.

"We add to this celebration the delivery of the first eight harvesters for the rice harvest, of which six are already on national territory. These machines come as a result of the monitoring visits that we have been making to this irrigated area. Today the Government of Mozambique fulfills another promise in this irrigated area, through SUSTENTA. In what concerns production, our perspective is to reach, still this season, 1/3 of the maximum capacity of 30 thousand tons per year, of this factory unit, and to grow to its maximum capacity in the next two campaigns", he highlighted.

Correia said that the indicators, in terms of rice production, are encouraging and give guarantees that the country will be self-sufficient in the coming years.

"These positive results open up great challenges and prospects for a future of steady growth. Now we can't just talk about signs, but about results. This is the path of results we want to go down. Our commitment is to achieve self-sufficiency in this crop in the next five years. It was in this context that, last week, in Nante, Zambezia, we confirmed the progress of the reconstruction works of irrigation infrastructures in Munda, where we hope to cover another 3,000 hectares of production of this cash crop in the next campaign. This action of the Government in the field of irrigation is not only limited to these two interventions we have referred to, but also includes the rehabilitation of a total of 12,000 hectares in the provinces of Gaza, Manica, Sofala, Zambézia, and also the facilitation of access to production kits for more than 50,000 small producers.