Os Desafios da Investigação Agrária em Moçambique

Abstract

Agricultural Research and Development (R&D) is an instrument of economic development that can help countries to counter chronic hunger and malnutrition that afflicts many people in the world. In Africa the biggest challenge for governments is to allocate at least 1% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Agricultural Research and Development. The article is review aims to reflect on the current challenges of the public agricultural research in Mozambique. This includes analyzing the levels of public investment on agricultural research and development. We advance the following conclusion: with the implementation of the Agricultural Development Programme (Proagri), the Government mobilized a significant amount of financial resources to transformation and improvement of research capacity, however, the current levels of investment are not adequate for sustaining growth in the agricultural sector. Other challenges of the public agricultural research include: (i) the difficulty to sustain investments started by Proagri, (ii) the need to change the incentives so that the private sector is increasingly involved in agricultural research (iii) change the approaches focus in setting research priorities and development of skills in social and human scientific areas, as well (v) the need overall job conditions of researchers so that they can feel motivated to carry out their duties.

Keywords

• agricultural research and development
• challenges
• investment
• agricultural research institute