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Coordination: Sub-Saharan Africa
Partners
Around the world, IPI works with numerous in-country partners. These include researchers, extension services, advisers, cooperatives, associations and farmers.
Maize Intensification in Mozambique (MIM) Project
The project is supported by the International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA), International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI), International Potash Institute (IPI), and CropLife International and implemented by the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), An International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development, P.O. Box 2040, Muscle Shoals, Alabama 35662, U.S.A.
Introduction
The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) has declared that the vision of
economic development in Africa must be based on raising and sustaining higher rates of
economic growth, and the African Heads of State and Government adopted the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program (CAADP), which calls for a 6% annual growth in agricultural production, as a framework for the restoration of agricultural growth, food security and rural development in Africa. Fertilizer use in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is, on average, 8 kg/ha, or only about 10% of the world average and fertilizer use in Mozambique is, on average, 6 kg/ha. Adequate nutrition is necessary to maintain human health and to enable humans to resist diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and cholera, among others. Both healthy and ill people require micronutrients, macronutrients and a healthy calorie-protein diet that cannot be met by pills alone. A rapidly deployable approach to increase the micronutrient content of foods is agronomic fortification. By adding essential nutrients of both plants and humans (such as zinc and boron) and essential nutrients of humans (such as selenium) by fertilization, crop yields can be increased and human nutrition can be improved.
The project
The purpose of this project is to demonstrate to smallholder farmers how, with the use of more fertilizer and other inputs and better techniques, they can transition from subsistence farming to commercial, quality maize production and marketing. Our objectives of the project are:
- Increase maize yield, production, and nutritional properties through improved management and increased use of fertilizer, quality seed, and crop protection products
- Increase incomes of smallholder farmers and improve livelihoods by improved diets and purchasing power in rural areas through increased access to input and product markets.
The project will focus on productive farming areas/clusters in Manica, Nampula, and Northern Zambezia provinces. Farmers in these three regions of Mozambique are currently intensifying the production of vegetables, oil seed crops, and, to a lesser degree, cereal crops with the assistance of two on-going projects: the IFDC Agricultural Input Markets Strengthening (AIMS) project and Private Enterprise in the Development of Agriculture project (EMPRENDA).
