Maputo — The brewery in the northern Mozambican province of Nampula, owned by CDM, the local subsidiary of South African Breweries, is considering using locally grown cassava in beer production, to reduce the financial burden arising from the import of raw materials.

Cited in the Maputo daily "Noticias", the Nampula Provincial Director of Agriculture, Jose Varimelo, said that his institution and the brewery have evaluated the capabilities of cassava production in Nampula and are currently searching for producers capable of supplying this raw material in large quantities.

According to him, Nampula produces on average over four million tonnes of cassava per year, most of which is intended for household consumption.

"If there was a market to pay peasants a little more than they currently receive for this crop, we would be able to persuade more communities to expand their areas of cultivation, and increase the production from 10 to over 15 tonnes per hectare", said Varimelo

The production of beer not only uses barley and hops, but also starch powder which can be extracted from cassava.

The Nampula brewery was built at a cost of over 50 million U.S. dollars, and began operating earlier this year.

This plant produces 480,000 hectolitres of beer per year.