Ministry of Agriculture

The working paper publication series is designed to provide users with timely research results while refinements and longer term synthesis are completed, and final reports are available. The preparation of working papers and their discussion with those who design and influence programs and policies in Mozambique is an important step in the Directorates's overall analysis and planning mission. Comments and suggestions on these working papers by interested users help identify additional questions for consideration in further research and helps refine major reports being written by Directorate researchers. Users of these working papers are encouraged to submit comments and inform us of ongoing information and analysis needs. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The National Directorate of Agricultural Economics is undertaking collaborative research in the food security area with Michigan State University (the Department of Agricultural Economics). We wish to acknowledge the financial and substantive support of the Ministry of Agriculture of Mozambique and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Maputo to complete food security research in Mozambique. Research support from the Africa Bureau and the Bureau of Research and Development of AID/Washington have also made it possible for Michigan State University researchers to participate in this research, and to help conduct field activities in Mozambique. A research team from the MOA/MSU Food Security Project (FSP) conducted a rapid appraisal in Nampula Province during August and September 1993. The mission was designed to gain insights into the evolution of the postwar economy in northern Mozambique, a region where the FSP had conducted a socioeconomic survey of smallholders two years earlier. FSP researchers plan to use the 1993 findings to help guide future research designed to inform policy makers about alternative strategies to improve smallholder well-being and regional economic performance. To define the focus and methodology of the rapid appraisal, the team made extensive use of what has been learned from an analysis of the Nampula Province farm level socioeconomic survey conducted by the FSP in 1991. Findings from the 1991 survey have been disseminated through the National Directorate of Agricultural Economics Working Paper Series. For the interested reader, a synopsis of key 1991 results is included at the end of the Executive Summary. The 1993 rapid appraisal visited selected households in the two villages of Monapo District where cotton played the most and least important roles in smallholder cropping patterns among all villages surveyed in the district two years earlier. Key insights from …