Mozambique food safety

Mozambique's poor go hungry despite rapid growth
Mon, Apr 04, 2011
Eradicating food insecurity remains a challenge in Mozambique, writes BILL CORCORAN in Maputo
MOZAMBIQUE’S government has decided to hike food and fuel prices in the coming months but will offer other aid to the poor in the hope of avoiding a repeat of last year’s deadly riots in Maputo or north Africa-style protests.
Fuel prices will revert to market levels when subsidies are phased out this month, but students and workers will receive transport passes instead, Antonio Cruz of Mozambique’s planning ministry said last week.
Subsidies on bread and rice will end in June. However, families earning less than about $2 a day – 90 per cent of Mozambicans – will be able to buy basic foods at reduced prices in certain shops, he added.
“These protests [last September in Maputo] are a sign that the cost of living is very high. It is an international crisis that is also influencing what is happening in North Africa,” he said.
Despite rapid economic growth over the past 15 years that has propelled it into the world’s top 10 fastest-growing economies, eradicating food insecurity in Mozambique remains a challenge.
In February, the government warned that food security needed to be “deeply improved”, following the release of a survey that revealed 37 per cent of all households experience hunger during the year.
Mozambique’s impressive economic development since the mid-1990s can, for the most part, be attributed to two factors: its potential for catch-up growth from a low post-civil war base; and the desire of multinational companies to cash in on its untapped natural resources.
Mega-projects established to exploit oil, gas and minerals have bolstered the economy on a macro level over the past 10 years, but for most ordinary Mozambicans life has remained harsh.
Food security progress has been made, but new challenges have also emerged, with global warming and globalisation increasingly shaping this