THE Government deserves commendation for increasing financial allocation to the agriculture sector because this is in line with calls from a cross section of society to diversify the country’s economy.
For far too long, the Zambian Government and Zambians generally have been criticised for focusing attention on mining and paying ‘lip service’ to agriculture.
Yet minerals are commonly known as a ‘wasting asset’, meaning that once they run out, as they will eventually do, this may deal a huge blow to the country’s economy.
By contrast, agriculture provides much longer economic sustainability, looking at the vast and fertile land, much of which is yet to be exploited. In addition, agriculture offers a better solution to the country in need of food security.
As Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda rightly observed when delivering his 2015 Budget speech, the Government’s strategic focus is also to promote crop diversification, as well as increasing productivity and value-addition.
This forms part of the Government’s longstanding vision to expand the agriculture sector and, in the process, attain food security. In this vein, Mr Chikwanda announced the allocation of about K2 billion just for this particular exercise.
By so doing, the minister seemed to have positively responded to the call by the Zambia Consumers Association (ZACA) on the Government to allocate more money to agriculture with a view to expanding this sector, thereby improving the country’s food security.
It is not a secret that farmers, both commercial and small-scale, play a critical role in the national economy. This has been proved in the past few years when the country produced bumper maize harvests.
Maize and other agricultural products Zambia has produced in the recent past added a significant dimension to wealth generated from within the country as well as from the exports.
Should the country continue to have consistent bumper harvests of maize, for instance, as well as soya beans, tobacco and other export crops, the country will surely be on course towards a truly diversified economy.
International agricultural experts warn that the world still faces a food price crisis which may have a severe impact on developing countries like Zambia. So boosting agricultural production is an essential element to avoiding hunger and poverty.
One way to go is, therefore, partly by increasing funding to the agriculture sector, as the 2015 National Budget announced last Friday has done.
But this increased agricultural funding needs to benefit all farmers, including small-scale crop producers and women food farmers who, in addition, must have easy access to credit and adequate training, especially on the importance of saving.
Banks, especially microfinance institutions, should also be encouraged to lend money to small-scale farmers, especially women so that as many of these people as possible can engage in income-generating activities to increase their incomes and invest in their families and communities.
There is also a burning issue of paying farmers for their produce late, and this has very often been said to be a hindrance to smooth crop marketing and food security.
The Food Reserve Agency should, therefore, not hold on longer than necessary to the payment of maize supplied to it by the farmers because this tendency forces many crop producers to turn to other traders who tend to cheat them by buying their agricultural produce at give-away prices.
So as we commend Mr Chikwanda for increased funding to the agriculture sector in the 2015 National Budget, we equally realise the need for farmers to have favourable marketing policies.
This, together with the improving transport system across the country coming on the backdrop of the Link Zambia 8000, is cardinal to ensuring the growth of agriculture as a viable commercial activity.