Brazil open to strengthening agricultural cooperation with Angola

Brazil is open to more extensive cooperation with Angola so that the latter can once again become one of Africa’s top agricultural producers, the Brazilian ambassador in Angola, Ediuliza Fontenele Reis, said in Luanda.
During a meeting on the subject of coffee and soybeans organised by the IFE business promotion institute, the ambassador stressed that the two crops exemplify tradition and modernisation of agriculture in Brazil, which has been the world’s number one coffee producer for the last 150 years.
Cited by Angop news agency, Reis recalled that personnel from the Brazilian agro-livestock research firm Embrapa are currently providing support to Angola’s agronomic (IIA) and veterinary (IIV) research institutes.
The Angolan Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Afonso Pedro Canga, was present at the meeting. He affirmed that his country was “well positioned to develop soy production and commercialisation, due to climate conditions and soil characteristics similar to those of the Brazilian Cerrado.”
In the 1970s Angola was the world’s third-ranking coffee producer, though production fell drastically during the civil war, which ended in 2002.
Angola then produced about 210,000 tons of commercial coffee. Current production is estimated at just 12.6 million tons, mainly (96 percent) the Robusta type. MDT/Macauhub