This Thursday, João Lourenço expressed his position during his speech at the opening of the High Level Dialogue on "Food Africa: Leadership for the Increment of Successful Innovations", promoted by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
According to João Lourenço, the low prices of raw materials in international markets and the great weight of the foreign debt are factors that hinder the reactivation of the economies of African countries, in addition to the weak industrialization for the processing of products from the countryside, which means that large part of the processed food products are imported from other continents to Africa.
The head of state underlined that the African rural population is mainly linked to family farming, which contributes about 70 percent to supply markets, but despite this remains the poorest and with the greatest food problems.
In addition to the constraints he listed, João Lourenço also stressed his concern about the effects of climate change, which most often cause severe drought and floods, as well as the appearance of pests, with a negative impact on food production, underlining the technical assistance of FAO in the fight against the locust plague, which face some provinces in the south of Angola.
"A complementary concern is related to nutritional aspects, as they continue to be among the main causes of the high rates of infant mortality and the increase in cases of diabetes and tuberculosis in Africa", he stressed.
João Lourenço stressed that young Africans have a fundamental role in the transformation and development of agriculture and fisheries, in this sense, "it is important to motivate young people towards entrepreneurship and agro-business, facilitating access to land, inputs, training, financing, new technologies and markets ".
"Allow me to highlight here the great contribution and attention reserved to my country by IFAD and the AfDB [African Development Bank], for the approval and implementation of a set of projects to support the development of family farming and commercialization, the recovery of agriculture and strengthening the resilience of small farmers on a family scale ", he said.
