Prosavana was presented as a Programme for the Agricultural and Rural Development of the Nacala Corridor in Mozambique and aims to improve the competitiveness of the rural sector in the region in terms of both food security and the increased productivity of family subsistence agriculture as well as the generation of exportable surpluses resulting from the technical support to agribusiness oriented agriculture. But it is just one more megaproject, another very clear example of a Top – Down approach, negotiated at the highest level between the 3 countries involved with Mozambique supplying the land, Brazil the technical expertise and input, and Japan providing funds while at the same time securing food production for Japan.
ProSavana focuses on 14 districts in the provinces of Niassa, Nampula, and Zambezia, an area of roughly 14 million hectares along the Nacala corridor.
According to the few documents and information available about the project, ProSavana is supposed to promote rural and agricultural development in an area which was initially described as having large extensions of inhabited land and as being extremely underdeveloped when in fact this area is highly habited due to its rich and fertile soils, regular rain, and abundant water. Millions of peasants occupy most of this vast area and depend directly on the land which provides for millions of families. It is also a fact that this land can produce much more than what it currently produces and that most peasants and Mozambique as a whole would stand to gain if more adequate farming techniques, equipment, and better access to markets were the main objective of this initiative. But what we have slowly been learning is that ProSavana is not all that. ProSavana is agribusiness, it’s big money, it will use and abuse pesticides and fertilizers contaminating rivers and water sources, it will require moving communities away from the good land – resettlements, good examples of which we have yet to see in Mozambique. These communities are particularly vulnerable to landgrabbing which is already happening in the area with other projects and the communities have not been participating in the design of this project – they know very little about it and how they will be a part of it.
UNAC, União Nacional de Camponeses – the National Peasants Union, has released a statement, a strong message resulting from a meeting with the peasants in Nampula.
UNAC statment can be seen at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Uni%C3%A3o-Nacional-de-Camponeses/351893418235290
JA4change 