Facilitating Smallholder Farmers’ Market Access
In the OIC Member Countries
32
insufficient capacity for breeding new varieties, maintaining seed, and conducting seed
quality inspections—they lack breeders, other qualified staff, equipment, and financial
resources. Linkages between extension and farmers are poor, which may partly explain
why traits valued by smallholders are not sufficiently taken into account by breeders.
Farmers in Mozambique know about improved varieties, but improved seed is hard to find
and costly, while traditional varieties are perceived to have better resistance to drought,
field pests, and storage pests. Smallholder farmers prefer to plant a mix of varieties as a
hedge against the failure of a single variety.
Mozambican farmers use very little fertilizer. Unlike some neighboring countries,
Mozambique does not subsidize fertilizers, although it has implemented input subsidy
schemes in the past and has reportedly considered operating a national voucher scheme.55
The private sector imports virtually all of the fertilizer used in the country; 93 percent is
applied to tobacco and sugarcane and less than 4 percent to food crops. As mentioned,
sugarcane is primarily a plantation crop, while some smallholders do grow tobacco under
contract farming arrangements. The average farmer has little or no incentive to use
fertilizer because fertilizer prices are far higher than prices of grains such as maize. No
fertilizer regulations were in place in 2012.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Key power, telecommunications, and irrigation infrastructure is underdeveloped. Despite
some recent investments, Mozambique’s road density is the lowest in southern Africa, and
strategic investments linking rural roads to agricultural production areas remain limited.56
Of Mozambique’s 37,000-kilometer road network, only about 6,000 kilometers are paved.
If the network were in good repair, an estimated 41 percent of the rural population would
have access to roads (measured as those living within 2 kilometers of any road). In fact,
the poor condition of the network means that a much smaller share of the rural population
has reliable, all-year access—only 11 percent, according to the government’s Performance
Assessment Framework. Poor roads contribute to high vehicle operating costs, high
transport costs, and low traffic volumes, posing major constraints to agricultural areas.
ACCESS TO FINANCE
The risks imposed by rainfed cropping systems, failure to repay subsidized loans for
agriculture, and land tenure issues make most financial service providers reluctant to lend
for agriculture. 57 Mozambique’s lack of rural finance is pervasive even by African
standards—85 percent of agricultural groups are reportedly excluded from access to
financial services.58 Not even 14 percent of rural households are located within 30
minutes’ travel time to a formal financial institution; more than 34 percent must travel
more than 3 hours to reach one, and 2 percent must travel more than a day. Just 2.4
55 World Bank (2012a).
56 World Bank (2012b).
57 World Bank (2012b).
58 Hunguana et al. (2012).