Engineer Waldemar Simões, a technician at the National Directorate of Agriculture and Livestock (DNAP), a department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Angola, highlighted this Thursday, at the workshop to launch the public consultation for the preparation of the National Strategy for the Reconversion of Agri-food Systems (ENRSA) 2026-2035, financing and access to credit as one of the challenges of the agricultural sector.
In Angola, agriculture “is a vital sector” for the national economy, said the executive, highlighting that it represents around 8 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs more than 80 percent of the rural population.
Waldemar Simões pointed out low productivity, financing and access to credit, poor access to appropriate technologies, poor soil management and inadequate use of fertilizers, poor management of water resources, pests and diseases and demographic pressure as “significant challenges” that the sector still faces.
The director highlighted that family farming remains predominant in the sector.
Referring to data from the 2023-2024 harvest, he stated that family agricultural companies produced 23 million tons of various products on 5.5 million hectares, while the business sector produced close to five million tons of products on 527 thousand cultivated hectares.
According to Waldemar Simões, despite the executive's efforts to make large financial resources available to support entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector, “the weak production in this sector is still noticeable”, considering the results of the 2023-2024 harvest.
Regarding ENRSA, whose public consultation began this Thursday and should last three months, he signaled that the initiative aims to leverage agri-food systems that improve the nutrition of Angolans and health outcomes.
Creating a mechanism for the functioning of investment in the national agri-food system and strengthening nutrition policies and programs, nutritional education and consumer awareness are also among the specific objectives of the strategy.
The official stressed that the government supports the vision of the extraordinary session of the Summit of Heads of State and Government of the African Union, held on January 11, in Uganda, to renew collective efforts to “promote the development of sustainable and resilient agri-food systems for a sustainable and prosperous Angola”.
The Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Isaac dos Santos, considered, in turn, that ENRSA has as its axes the fight against poverty, the elimination of poverty and the guarantee of food and nutritional security.
Isaac dos Santos highlighted that the document under public discussion should adapt the country to growth centered on agriculture, “as a main strategy to achieve food security, nutrition and common prosperity goals”.
“Agriculture is the base, it is the foundation, it is where we have the majority of our people in Africa involved, it is the gateway through which these problems can be resolved, the gateway to combating and reducing poverty,” concluded the minister.
