Benguela – Six hundred tons of fertilizers are available at the Farmer's House in Dombe Grande commune, in Benguela province, to support agricultural and livestock cooperatives in the region, ANGOP learned today.
The Farmer's House, opened in June 2022, in an initiative of the Nelson Rodrigues Agro-Livestock Farm, aims to ensure the supply of insecticides and fertilizers, essential products to leverage agricultural production and diversify the economy.
In addition to the peasants of Dombe Grande, in the municipality of Baía Farta, south of Benguela, the project, which cost 80 million kwanzas, is also supplying fertilizers to producers in the neighboring provinces of Huambo, Bié and Cuanza Sul.
Speaking to ANGOP about the 2023-2024 agricultural campaign, the farmer and owner of the farm, Nelson Rodrigues, said that they have compound fertilizer NPK 12-24-12, urea and ammonium, 200 tons of each type.
Because of the galloping rise in fertilizer prices, Nelson Rodrigues assumed that the Farmer's House is making it easier for rural workers by slightly reducing the cost of inputs.
He explained that the farmers are buying NPK 12-24-12 compound fertilizer at a price of 36,000 kwanzas, compared to 40,000 kwanzas on the informal market.
"It's slightly cheaper, because we buy large quantities to sell at a discount," he said, adding that the company is ready to meet the needs of the region's farmers.
To this end, the entrepreneur emphasized that Farmer's House has formed partnerships with two companies, Rainbow-Agro and Solevo, thus enabling the purchase of inputs at affordable prices.
"The concerns of farmers in Dombe Grande have to do with the high price of inputs," he said, acknowledging that it is impossible to have reasonable production with very expensive fertilizers, despite the subsidy from the Agrarian Development Support Fund (FADA).
As long as the situation continues, Nelson Rodrigues predicts that production costs will be high for small and medium-sized producers and will therefore make the final product more expensive, ultimately discouraging production.
"Instead of producing on a large scale, farmers will produce little," he warned, justifying once again the initiative of the Farmers' House to help farmers access inputs to minimize their difficulties.
Remodeling
He also said that the work to extend the Farmers' House is well underway and that when it is completed, possibly in January 2024, it will be a two-storey building covering an area of 2,100 square metres.
He recalled that the opening of the enterprise arose from the need to support local producers in the fight against systematic pests, which have been damaging producers' crops in the Dombe Grande commune, especially the tuta, which attacks tomatoes.
The ANGOP interlocutor said that the space has been offering peasants and farmers in Benguela, Huambo, Bié and Kwanza Sul a range of agrochemical products, such as insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, fertilizers.
In addition to these products, there is feed, vitamins and medicines to combat diseases that affect animal health.
Nelson Rodrigues says that the enterprise also supply of equipment such as sprayers, drip irrigation systems, motor pumps and standard and improved seeds. JH/CRB/DAN/DOJ
