ISAÍAS MUTOMBO MAFAVISSE
Abstract:
The main goal of this paper is to analyze the role of public policies in promoting rural development in Mozambique, seeking to identify the barriers (blockages) that make it difficult for small farmers in Malema District to improve (in productivity and income generation), as specific goals, characterize the current stage of development of agricultural activity in Malema district; analyze state actions through public policies (PROAGRI I and PROAGRI II) to enable the development of family farming and its insertion in the internal market; to verify the issue of the need for irrigation in Malema's agriculture and, as this subject has been addressed, regarding the feasibility of irrigation technologies for small farmers; To investigate how local farmers' collective organizations have been formed, seeking to understand their aspirations and needs to ensure development and to analyze the influences and interferences of Multilateral Agencies in public policies directed to Mozambique field. PROAGRI emerged in the context of the Agrarian Policy and Implementation Strategy (PAEI). With PAEI, the first agricultural policy document, the Government of Mozambique aimed to boost the growth of the agricultural sector in the country, improving productivity and increasing production, aiming to promote food security, sustainable economic growth, reduction of the rate of unemployment and misery. Mozambique is a country which has its economy heavily dependent on agriculture, so this sector is responsible for generating the largest share of rural population income, representing 70% of the Mozambican population. From national independence in 1975 to the present day, the country's history has been marked by political and economic reforms, recently passing through a transition from a planned (socialist) economy to a (capitalist) market economy. In the transition to capitalism, the institutional and land tenure structure in rural areas underwent changes under the "orientations" of the Bretton Woods institutions within the framework of political, economic and social reforms through the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP). In Malema District, agriculture is still experiencing difficulties characterized by political, economic and structural aspects, in which public institutions and the private sector are not yet consolidated. Smallholder farmers resent policies and programs that are conducive to their economic and social progress, keeping them still in subsistence and with rudimentary production systems. The implementation of PROAGRI in its first and second phase did not fully address the bottom - up perspectives, although the document for phase two already provided for the horizontal approach, prioritizing the participation of all stakeholders and grassroots consultations. However, the small farmers who would be the main targets of the program did not feel included in the process and many even unaware of the program. At the end of PROAGRI, there was the individual or collective unsustainability of small farmers in agricultural activities, resentful of the lack of agricultural credits, agricultural implements, seeds, inputs, problems with access routes, lack of marketing channels, weak rural extension technical support, among others. Therefore, the contribution of PROAGRI that was thought to be of added value to improve the quality of life of small farmers, paradoxically arises from these limitations to which small farmers are subject to grow and improve agricultural production when they no longer find any kind of support.
