Hanoi will assist Mozambican localities in developing agriculture,
Deputy Chairman of the Hanoi municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Van
Suu said to Mozambique’s Minister of Agriculture Jose Pacheco in
Hanoi on March 11.
Pacheco said Mozambique
is paying special attention to food cultivation for export, especially
wet rice. At present, Hanoi is implementing the trilateral
Vietnam–Japan–Mozambique wet rice growing cooperation project in Nante,
Zamberia province, and the second stage of the bilateral project in
Macia, Gaiza province for the 2013–2014 period.
This year, Hanoi will earmark 10 billion VND (500,000 USD) for
technical assistance to Mozambique. In the past, the capital city
experimented with perennial and annual rice varieties, which yielded
higher output, in model farms in the African country.
The model farms will be expanded and local farmers will receive
guidance to work on 30 hectares of land. Output is estimated at 4 tonnes
per hectare, 2.5 times current production.
As part
of the trilateral project, Vietnam and Japan have trained
hundreds of Mozambican agriculture officials and farmers, and held
seminars to share its experience in wet rice farming.
In the first quarter of this year, Vietnamese experts helped
localities build irrigation dykes and offered training in leveling paddy
fields and sowing rice.-VNA