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The three C's: climate, COVID, and conflict further exposed the fragility of the food systems in Mozambique and the relevance of addressing the role of each stakeholder in the food system to make it functional. According to the Food System Dashboard, the food system is the set of people and activities that play a role in growing, transporting, supplying, and ultimately feeding. The different parts of the food system include food supply chains, food environments, individual factors, and consumer behaviour, as well as external factors (factors that influence the system). The private sector plays a leading role in ensuring the proper functioning of the food system, and more than ever they have the right to find innovative ways to overcome and reinvent the way business is done to address the various challenges in the sector. SBNMOZ as a platform with a mandate to enhance and strengthen the private sector's contribution to improving nutrition, promotes national dialogue sessions to catalyse private sector efforts as a way to transform food systems in Mozambique. In November 2022, SBNMOZ implemented its 4th annual conference, highlighted by technical discussions around different themes, with the goal of accelerating the transformation of food systems for nutrition in Mozambique.
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| The main highlights of the discussions at SBNMOZ's 4th Annual Conference Poultry Production in Mozambique To ensure the transformation of food systems, the agro-food sector, in particular poultry production, must gradually move from the scale of family production to a scale of (semi-)industrial production. Currently, the national poultry market presents a large proportion of informal producers, who are not part of the statistics and, consequently, vulnerable to various risks, with emphasis on biosecurity risks, due to lack of supervision and accountability. During the roundtable on poultry farming, and between small and large producers, the government, non-governmental organizations and associations, recommendations for achieving self-sufficiency in this sector were raised, which include
"The family sector in chicken production contributes with about 60% of the total meat production, being in this aspect more robust than the industry, but it is a sector that is completely linked to the industry through the acquisition of inputs, raw materials, already in egg production the contribution of the family sector is still incipient with about 10%". Zeiss Lacerda, AMIA
Value Chain of Fisheries in Cabo Delgado Despite the enormous potential that Mozambique has for the fisheries sector, due to its extensive coastline, this sector has not been the target of large investments, maintaining the current production on an artisanal/family scale. One of the biggest challenges in this sector is post-harvest losses, due to several factors, mainly capture equipment, conservation, transport, and time to market. One of the actions to address this deficit in the sector would be to ensure a holistic approach that does not necessarily imply removing from the market those who are already part of the chain, but rather improving production, training fishermen to improve their conservation and selling techniques, thus reducing the risks of post-capture losses, and consequently ensuring greater availability of quality fish. Investments should be accompanied by capacity building for these producers, as a way to create sustainability, both economically and environmentally. Main recommendations of the panel:
The use of data for the transformation of national food systems At the current pace of the world, technology-based solutions are key to ensuring a functional food system so that we can achieve the transformation we aspire to. Technologies have the potential to reduce effort, distance, time, resources and thus get better results faster and have the same results globally available. "This dashboard should involve the participation of all stakeholders, as it can be used in various perspectives, both for policy decision making and also at the business level." Alberto Tsamba, UEM Despite the various challenges that technologies still pose in the country, especially in the agri-food area, where we have much of the production being done on a subsistence basis and in areas with little technological coverage, we must look to technology and innovation as one of the solutions to achieve the transformation of food systems.
Blended Finance To ensure greater maturity of agri-food companies, we must encourage the strengthening of business management capacity and the adoption of innovative and technological solutions." Salim Valá, Chairman of the Mozambique Stock Exchange In Mozambique, we have about 70% of families involved in agricultural activity. This sector contributes with about 23% of the Gross Domestic Product, but, unfortunately, these companies are not prepared or listed on the stock exchange. In other words, these companies can hardly make use of traditional financial mechanisms, due to the high costs and risks, but there is also a lack of knowledge of alternative mechanisms. Another important aspect is the development of companies' capacities to access financing. We see many companies applying for financing and when asked about basic aspects of a business plan (an essential tool for the success of the company), such as competition, market, they are unable to answer. This factor represents a risk when it comes to financing, because no investor wants to give his money to a poorly prepared or structured company because of the high risk of bankruptcy. |
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| 4th Annual SBN Conference: the future
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