After independence, Portuguese settlers were given two options: immediate expulsion from the country within a twenty-four hour period with a twenty kilograms luggage or enforced Mozambican citizenship. Many chose the former. (Source D) the mass exodus of the Portuguese and other foreigners left a major gap in the economy. As the Portuguese controlled practically all aspects of Mozambican political and economic activities and the Mozambicans had received insufficient education or training, the gap left when the Portuguese abandoned the country could not be filled by Mozambicans. (Source G) As the marketing system used to be dominated by Portuguese and Indian merchants, when they left, the system nearly collapsed. As a result agricultural goods could not …show more content…
(Source F) Subsequently, the peasants withdrew to a more subsistence form of farming. The newly formed Mozambican administration had to deal with the management of two thousand abandoned farms. These were nationalized partly out of necessity and partly for ideological reason. After the third Frelimo Congress, state farms were created as a means of attaining ‘socialization of the countryside’. (Source A) With the government wanting to pursue these large organizational units in the agriculture sector, there was a necessity for highly specialized technicians, supervisors and experience managers. The success of this system that the government had in place depended on the intensive use of the country’s most critically scarce resource: skilled labour. Between 1977and 1982 the imports of consumer goods increased four times. In 1982 the state farms were producing less in monetary value than the inputs. (Source B) the lack of skills due to the mass exodus of the Portuguese led to the state farms being unable to meet the food requirement, which subsequently led to the country being hungry by the end of the first decade