Navigation
Script from JavaScript Kit
Plantation Agriculture in Mozambique:
Copra, Oil and Soap, 1981-1996
Unnumbered Dossier
Above: a Madal advertisement from Tempo no.981, 30 July 1989, page 59.
Copra – together with sugar, tea, and sisal – has historically been one of Mozambique’s most important plantation and smallholder crops, used both in the local manufacturing of soap and edible oils, and as an export commodity. Nevertheless, Mozambique is a minor player in the global copra market compared to major producers such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and India. Mozambique only produces around 1,000 to 3,000 metric tons of copra annually, while the Philippines, for example. produces two million metric tons.
Copra oil is produced from the dried, white flesh of the coconut and coconut palms can live as long as 100 years, with peak productivity lasting as long as thirty years. Exactly when copra production began in Mozambique is poorly documented, but it is possible that coconut palm cultivation was introduced by early Arab maritime traders. However, the question of how coconut palms spread across the world is disputed. The coconut palm
… is commonly regarded as… [having been] domesticated in antiquity in some unknown region from wild palms that are presumably extinct ... In this view, any coconut groves that appear wild are assumed to be feral relics of human planting. The tremendous prehistoric range of the species, spanning the Indian and Pacific oceans from East Africa to Panama, is thus seen as dramatic testimony of long-range plant dispersal by ancient voyagers. An alternative… is to accept the possibility that spontaneous coconut populations may be truly wild and capable of wide natural dispersal. The mere presence of the species would then fail to qualify as prima facie evidence of cultural contacts. (Jonathan Sauer, “A re-evaluation of the coconut as an indicator of human dispersal,” in Carroll Riley and others (eds.) Man across the sea: problems of pre-Columbian contacts (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), p.309.
What is known is that from East Africa the Portuguese later established coconut plantations in West Africa and Brazil. In Mozambique under Portuguese colonial rule copra production increased in importance as an agricultural activity and the Portuguese began to establish plantations, as well as exporting processed copra to various global markets.
By the 1950s and early 1960s the two major enterprises producing copra from vast coconut plantations in the north were Boror and Madal. The Companhia do Boror was founded in 1899 in Zambézia, and by 1929 had over two million coconut trees – producing 13,000 tons of copra a year – as well as plantations for rubber and sisal on over 1,4 million ha. of land. The Société du Madal was founded in 1903 and remains one of the most important producers of copra. Originally a family business, Madal started to plant palms around Quelimane in 1904, and by the middle of the 1940s had more than 800,000 trees in production. In 1947, Madal changed its name from French to Portuguese as the Sociedade Agrícola do Madal and from the mid-1950s diversified into such commodities as tea growing and processing, and salt production. Madal was unable to operate for most of the period of the conflict with RENAMO (1975-1992) but presently has more than 1.4 million trees, and in recent years has continued to diversify into such areas as timber, cattle, tourism, cereals, transport logistics, and technical support for peasant farmers. In 2002 Madal built a new factory for copra oil processing and extraction in Quelimane.
Above: The headquarters building of the Companhia do Boror.
Although copra became an important component in the edible oils, soap and cosmetics industries in Mozambique, in the 1950s other raw materials, such as sunflower oil and groundnuts, were used by factories in Nampula, Manica-e-Sofala, and Lourenço Marques. In the 1960s copra began to be used more widely, and the Fasol Saborel enterprise was established at this time. It later occupied a monopoly position and was nationalised by the post-independence Frelimo Party government as Fasol-Saborel, EE (i.e. Empresa Estatal). Other important actors in the sector included Monapo, Ginwala, and the Companhia Industrial da Beira. At the time of writing the industry continues to use inputs such as sunflower, raw cotton, copra and peanuts, with some oils imported from overseas.
Above: A Mozambican worker in a field of coconuts, October 1992.
Coconut palms are vulnerable to pests and to the insect-borne "lethal leaf-yellowing" disease, which arrived in East Africa in the 1960s and has continued to destroy large numbers of trees. It was first reported in plantations in Mozambique in the northern provinces of Cabo Delgado and Zambézia but spread steadily. The disease usually kills an infected palm within six months and has reduced the number of trees in Mozambique and southern Tanzania by an estimated fifty per cent – leading to what has been described as the "collapse" of local economies in the 2000s (see, e.g. José Laimone Adalima, "Changing livelihoods in Micaúne, central Mozambique: from coconut to land," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pretoria, 2016, for an account of such an impact.)
Madal has renewed its crops using a disease-resistant palm variety known as the “green giant”, which has been shown to be effective. In 2022 Madal also announced an “integrated coconut palm re-population project” covering the districts of Chinde, Maganja da Costa, Inhassunge, Pebane and Nicoadala in Zambézia province. The value of exports of copra from Mozambique totalled US$2.04 million in 2023.
Consolidated Downloadable Zipped Files
Click on the yellow folder image below to download a zipped archive of 43 documents and press clippings on copra cultivation as well as soap and oil manufacturing, in PDF format.
