Much has been written and spoken in the press on this issue by farmers, opinion leaders and other well-intentioned members of our society. Yet we are still at square one. Why is it so? Is it because of lack of interest or is it because of lack of understanding on the subject and the strategies to attain at least the subsistence level? Though it is officially being said that we produce 95,000 tons of vegetables, including pineapples and bananas, over an area of seven to eight thousand hectares annually.
Despite potential growth, a critical constraint in development of food production and agro and food processing industry is the lack of supply chain infrastructure. While Mauritius possesses competitive advantage in several sectors, this advantage is filtered away due to lack of farming education in adopting the best practices and understanding the needs of focused end users and consequently causing lots of wastage from farm gate to the consumers and retailers. It is not saying that so far nothing has been done for the sector. In fact, much had been accomplished in recent past but those have gone in oblivion due to lack of strong supervision and management.
Budgetary measures
During the past years, budgetary measures have allocated funds for projects which had not been carefully studied and planned prior to announcements.They were projects of importance but due to unpreparedness takeoff and cruising speed are being delayed. Just to mention two of them, we have Macadamia and Organic Agriculture where nothing much is being heard of. Recently, some papers published applications of Expression of Interest (EOI) from Landscope for Agricultural Projects. It seems that the previous EOIs awarded have borne fruits though no tangible results are seen or heard of. Are we not treating symptoms rather than going to the root cause of the whole problem?
We need to review our strategies and reset the objectives. A key initiative – to metamorphose the supply chain infrastructure which would have a multiplier effect in the agricultural sector and greatly enhance competitiveness across the entire sector. A well-integrated and coordinated approach to infrastructure development will be necessary to ensure healthy utilisation of infrastructure facilities. It is very important to bear in mind two fundamental points in the agricultural sector; the uncertainty in projections and high risk perception.
Seasonality: The ground and tree crops and livestock undergo a reproduction cycle. Therefore, Agro-Industries have to procure the required raw materials only in season, while the processing operations and demand for their products are round the year. Furthermore, they suffer from the vagaries of the climatic conditions as is the case presently.
Perishability: The Agro-Industrial products are perishable raw products and therefore require greater speed and higher costs of handling and storage;
Variability: Unlike non Agro-Industries, Agro industries have to face variability in the quality of raw materials. This occurs because of the unpredictable nature of the weather conditions and/or damages to crops from pests and diseases.
These unique features of Agro-Industry necessitate its integration with the farmers to secure raw material supply. Despite these constraints it is necessary that the Agro-industrial sector delivers adequate returns on invested capital by operating throughout the year to achieve acceptable rate of capacity utilisation.
The Agro Sector displays such characteristics where only processing and manufacture cannot be taken as an industry. The Agro-Industry cannot be defined without backward linkage of food right up to the farm.
The proper definition of Agro-Industry as defined by World Organisations is – “units which add value to agricultural products/intermediates/residues, both food and non-food, by processing into products which are marketable or usable or by improving storability or by providing the link from farm to the market or part thereof. Agro-Industry also includes hi-tech and biotechnology based agriculture.” As such, simply by appellation of a Ministry by Government does not define the status of agriculture or food production of a country. It must be agreed that much had been done to kickstart the process but unfortunately stagnation has been noted for quite some time. The reasons for same have been canvassed repeatedly in past papers.
Paradigm Shift with clearly defined sets
of objectives
We observe that every year during the rainy or cyclonic seasons, Mauritius faces such a situation as is being felt presently. There is an urgent need to overcome the issue of subsidies from government as awarded to farmers and consumers as well. It ought to be pointed out that we had very few tourists as compared to the regular million more annually. As such, the population had sufficient fresh farm products for nearly two years and at affordable prices. Now that the target of a million tourists has been set, it will not be same for the coming months or years. In order not to find ourselves in such situations, it is important to have a Paradigm Shift with clearly defined sets of objectives for the Country. Those would likely be
– To create world class supply-chain infrastructure needed for agro-industrial development;
– To increase total flow of investments, both skill and capital in agro-industries to establish backward and forward linkages;
– To accelerate close interface between research, extension mechanisms and farmers and potential farmers/producers as well (as it used to be during the beginning of this millennium);
– To review the system of production by moving from individual to groups of set geographical regions into farmer producer companies;
– To increase value addition and reduce wastage, thereby increasing the income of farmers;
– To create rural employment among youth and unemployed graduates and improve quality of life;
– To assist small scale agro based units to remain competitive in global markets;
– To reduce Imports and export of certified value added agro products;
The tasks seem unsurmountable, but with the optimal and judicious use of existing resources and facilities in the Ministry of Agro-Industry and Food Security and Parastatals thereof, an era of change should be seen in the very near future.