Agriculture

Mine’s a Pint!

Beer

Despite its coal resources and immense gas discoveries, Mozambique remains a largely rural country. Land, used appropriately, is a non-exhaustible resource and will remain long after the coal or gas […]

Despite its coal resources and immense gas discoveries, Mozambique remains a largely rural country. Land, used appropriately, is a non-exhaustible resource and will remain long after the coal or gas boom is over. According to the World Bank, “growth in agriculture is up to 3.2 times better at reducing poverty in low-income and resource-rich countries than an equivalent amount of GDP expansion outside of agriculture“.

As Smart and Hanlon state in their book Chickens and Beer, a recipe collection for agricultural growth in Mozambique, economists have always assumed that bigger, mechanized farms, able to use economies of scale, are more efficient and productive than small farms. To everyone’s surprise most large-scale farms throughout Africa have failed. This is due to the fact that smaller farmers know the land better, work harder and with more care.

In Mozambique, real agricultural development has often been driven by large companies working with small farmers, as is the case with cotton or tobacco. Crispin Achola, General Director of British American Tobacco, told TBY that around 12,000 people derive a livelihood from their products. Even though this model is far from perfect and may bring along the typical problems of a monopsony market, it is a first step toward promoting the agricultural production and is now being used for what some people already call the “cassava revolution.“ A unique supplementary industry is emerging, too, effectively amounting a solution in a glass.

According to the Dutch Agricultural Development & Trading Company (DADTCO) “cassava is, together with maize, the product that contributes more than any other crop to the diet of Mozambicans.“ Their estimates show that cassava production, processing, and marketing involve around “12 million people, almost 88% of the rural population on approximately 2.4 million farms.“ The provinces of Nampula, Cabo Delgado, Inhambane, and Zambézia are those where cassava production is more popular. A report by the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) states that in Nampula province there are 600kg of cassava roots available per year per person, equivalent to 1.7kg per person, per day. This is definitely more than what it is required for domestic consumption, which means that there is a surplus that farmers can use to earn some money; though that may not be as easy as it seems. Experts have always advocated efficiency to increase production, but a farmer will never do that if unable to reach markets with his surplus. Access to markets is a problem that must be solved before concentrating on being efficient. This is particularly true for highly perishable cassava, a root with 70% water content that deteriorates almost immediately once harvested.

To avoid this degeneration problem, and give access to markets, DADTCO came up with an innovative solution: a mobile processing unit (AMPU) that fits a 40-foot container and travels to cassava-growing regions to process the root in situ. The AMPU machine turns the roots into a cassava cake that can be kept for up to a year. In one hour, the AMPU converts 3.8 metric tons of cassava roots into 2 metric tons of cake. DADTCO has now 4,200 registered growers in Nampula, who sell an average of 3 tons of cassava each.

BIG CHEER FOR THE BEER

Innovative cassava ideas don’t stop here as SAB Miller’s local subsidiary, Cervejas de Moçambique (CDM), decided to partner with DADTCO in 2011 to produce the first commercial low-cost cassava beer in the world under the Impala brand. The cassava cakes are transported to CDM’s breweries where they replace up to 70% of the expensively imported malted barley. CDM is now making high-quality beer at highly affordable prices using local resources and materials, and contributing to the agricultural and economic development of the country. The Managing Director of CDM told TBY that, to date it “has purchased cassava roots from over 5,000 farmers, and has indirectly impacted over 50,000 people“.

As legendary American musician Frank Zappa said, “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.“ Mozambique already had the airline and several beers, but now it is producing the first cassava beer in the world—surely a fact worth drinking to.

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