Introduction

Historically, sugar cane cultivation has been the main agricultural activity in Mauritius. As the era of guaranteed price and quota free access for Mauritian produced sugar on the EU market comes to an end, the traditional sugar industry has now transformed itself into a sugar cane cluster producing several types of sugar, electricity from bagasse and ethanol.

Other agricultural products, namely fruits and vegetables are grown locally, though on a much smaller scale. Mauritius remains by far a net importer of food, 70 per cent of our net food requirements are imported. The share of agriculture to GDP declined from 4.4% in 2008 to 4% in 2008. A number of measure have been undertaken to deal with these issues. For example the cultivation of hybrid rice seeds and recently other new crops have been started.

Agriculture in Mauritius has largely been traditional, with sugar production being done on an industrial scale. Today the sugar industry is a cluster that is involved in the production of refined sugar, the production of high quality rums, ethanol fuel production and using bagasse, sugarcane waste, to produce electricity. The agricultural sector in Mauritius is moving from traditional to industrial in the face of global food challenges.

The recent rise in global food prices caused by the severe shortages presented an opportunity to boost up local food production and increase the country’s self-sufficiency level. The government is pushing the agricultural sector in this direction through food security strategies that are already bearing fruit. An innovative step is the local cultivation of rice with the aim of supplying the local market and for export.

As part of this move towards food security, a total of 23,500 hectares in Mozambique has been made available to the Government of Mauritius. The rice cultivation is in the context of regional cooperation for food security projects, namely the cultivation of major crops such as wheat, rice, pulses, maize, onions and potatoes. The government of Mauritius will be allocating plots of land to private local and foreign developers on the condition that 25% of all produced be made available to the Mauritian and Mozambican governments.

Closer to home, the dairy farming sector has become more technological with the opening of hi-tech dairy farms. In addition, the government is facilitating the technological upgrade of small regional cow breeding cooperatives. Milk pasteurization and packing plants are already operational in Mauritius.

To further increase capacity building in agribusiness, the Board of Investment is collaborating with the University of Mauritius to devise modules intended for young graduates wishing to become “agripreneurs”.

Development of the agribusiness sector is very high on the agenda of the Board of Investment. It plans to attract further foreign investment in areas such as large-scale hydroponic farming, animal feed production, cattle breeding and high value added food processing for export.