According to Rita Soma Miranda, Humpata's municipal administrator, the local market does not have the capacity to receive the production, which generally must be harvested and marketed within three months.
Cited by Angop, the manager also made it known that they registered the farm on the digital platform of the Production Support Program, Export Diversification and Import Substitution (PRODESI) "to have direct buyers". "So far we have had correspondence from these buyers, but we are still worried because the fruit is spoiling," she said.
Besides, to try to get around the problem and combat the losses, the farm - which is linked to the Angolan Armed Forces Social Security Box - has lowered the price of the product.
Along with the lack of buyers, the low purchasing power of potential clients, the restrictions adopted due to covid-19, the poor condition of access roads and roads and the non-existence of a processing industry in the region have also aggravated the situation of disposal.
Regarding the processing industry, the administrator admitted that this would be a reliable solution to combat the problem. However, she revealed that the factories that are close to the farm have not been operating since 2013, making the disposal process more difficult.
The region has a total of eight fruit processing plants. The plants were inaugurated in 2007, and although they are equipped with new machines they have not operated for about seven years.
Rita Soma Miranda also made it known that the region's production sector is weakened due to lack of support. An example of this is the losses that the region registers per year. According to Angop, Huila province is able to produce fruit and vegetables all year round due to its climate, however, it loses about 50 thousand tons of products per year due to lack of outlets.
The farm 'A Nossa Terra' is composed of 250 thousand orange trees, planted on 320 hectares of land. It also has factories equipped with machines capable of producing six thousand one and a half liter bottles per hour. The orange juice factory is capable of producing one thousand liters of juice every hour.
