A new plant in Somalia .. Is it an attempt to break the dominance of imported food?

Qasim Ahmed Sahl-Mogadishu

The pre-war nutritional pattern in Somalia in the period before the outbreak of the civil war in 1991 relied mainly on local agricultural crops, such as maize, sorghum, beans, etc., in addition to meat, milk and fish.

Traditional foods made from corn were the overriding table in almost all homes such as "anjiro" for breakfast, "sour" for lunch, "mofu", and "ambulu" (made from beans) "at dinner according to personal preferences.

As for now, imported food products, whether in the form of cereals, dry materials, or in the form of canned goods, are now strongly present on the Somali tables, and they rank on the top of the import ladder, but most of them are poor food and dubious in their safety and quality because of weak control systems, and the most dangerous thing is that some of the materials are imported and they are Very close to the expiration of its validity, which will negatively affect the right growth of children, according to observers.

negative effect
As a result of the presence of preservatives in many imported food commodities and their lack of the required nutritional value, they can be linked to cases of malnutrition and some previously unknown diseases in Somalia, such as throat cancer and others, even if there is no study to prove this scientifically, according to Mohamed Tayyeb Sheikh Abu Bakr, head of the Faculty of Agriculture at the University "Island" in Mogadishu in an interview with Al Jazeera Net.

In his opinion, the negative impact of imported foodstuffs was not limited to this section. Rather, local agricultural production affected one of the important pillars of the Somali economy, which recorded a remarkable decline in the recent period.

It also disrupted many farms as a result of dumping these materials on the markets along the country and offering them at competitive prices.

In this atmosphere, the company "Fast Green" established a factory that contains grain mills.

The usual diet
The storage capacity of the factory is estimated at 11 thousand tons, while its production capacity is ninety tons per day, but the short life of the factory - which does not exceed months - it currently produces three tons per day to be consumed in Mogadishu and its surroundings, according to the company director Qasim Adan Mahmoud, who said that their production The current focuses on corn, grinding it in different ways and packing it in varying amounts, so that it is ready for use in multiple cooking purposes and in various meals, and in the coming days they add other grains of local agricultural crops to the factory’s operations.

The goal, according to Mahmoud, who spoke to Al Jazeera Net, is to restore nutritional behavior to the right and previous way, and to support local farmers by purchasing their agricultural crops for the factory.

He believes that the demand for their products is encouraging and that the demands are increasing continuously with the support of a general trend formed by the Somali society is to return to the usual food method derived from agricultural crops, at least in some of the main meals.

Mahmoud adds that the success of their project to break the dominance of imported food commodities depends on government support and support.

Obstacles
These small industries are important as one of the pillars in the country's economic growth and an effective mechanism in addressing the prevailing problem of unemployment in the country and creating job opportunities for many of the unemployed, according to Abdul Aziz Ahmed Ibrahim, a professor at the University of Somalia in Mogadishu, who indicated that the new factory is pushing agricultural production to Forward and gives an incentive and moral dose for local farmers.

Ibrahim says that the method of preparing corn in preserved boxes instead of traditional methods while maintaining the cleanliness of their storage places makes them acceptable in small and large stores, which contributes to increasing their consumption.

He adds that small industries face a number of obstacles, the most important of which is that owning a plot of land on which factories are located is very costly because there are no areas allocated by the government to establish factories there, in addition to the high variable costs such as electricity and local labor wages even though they are not well trained and lack experience, which leads to an increase The price of the product, which limits its ability to compete with imported food commodities that come at low prices, and then factories falter.

To prevent the situation from reaching this level, the government should provide protection to emerging industries through financing support, tax exemptions, and lowering tariffs on machinery and equipment imported from abroad.

In the words of Ibrahim in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, the Somali government understands its responsibility and is ready to use legitimate and possible means to protect small industries, such as reducing electricity prices to a minimum in coordination with the ministries and relevant authorities.

Quality improvement
The most important thing that the government seeks to achieve is to improve the quality of local industries products in order to rise to the required standards and be able to compete with imported goods, in preparation for finding external markets for them, and then to enhance and increase the volume of Somalia's exports, which is lagging behind the volume of imports by a large difference, according to the Somali Minister of Trade and Industry. Abdullah Ali Hassan in an interview with Al Jazeera Net.

It also falls within the priorities of the government to enact the necessary legislation and revitalize the industrial field by attracting foreign investors to establish new industries inside the country, along with the current 104 small industries, of which ninety are factories in Mogadishu, according to Hassan, who considered that the industry in Somalia is still in its infancy .

The number of factories before the Civil War estimated 53, varying between small, medium and large, most of which were owned by the government.

The industrial sector remains modest and contributes to the GDP by about 7.4%, while agriculture and livestock constitute about 40% of the GDP, and about 65% of the state's revenue.