By HELEN ZULU –
THE Government says household and national food security has remained vulnerable to climate change related hazards such as drought despite excellent progress in agricultural production.
Agriculture Permanent Secretary Julius Shawa said despite excellent progress in agricultural production and to some extent productivity, household and national food security has remained vulnerable to weather variability and climate change related hazards.
Mr Shawa said in Zambia national food security was reliant on a few staple crops produced mostly by smallholders under rain-fed conditions.
He said this in a speech read for him by the ministry’s director human resource Monde Gwaba during the launch of the Zambia Climate Smart Agriculture Country profile by the World Bank in Lusaka yesterday.
Household and national food security has remained vulnerable to weather variability and climate change related hazards such as changes in rainfall patterns and temperature despite excellent progress in agricultural production.
“Climate smart agriculture presents an opportunity to simultaneously address productivity , resilience and mitigation while promoting national food security,” Mr Shawa said.
He said the profile indicated that mainstreaming of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) into national development plans, policies and strategies represented positive steps towards ensuring an enabling institutional and policy environment.
Mr Shawa said in addition although conservation agriculture and agroforestry were the most widely promoted CSA practices in Zambia, current efforts needed to be expanded to incorporate other CSA practices related to manure management, fodder production, integrated soil fertility, pasture and forage management.
He said with the launch of the country profile as well as other efforts related to climate change adaptation and mitigation the country was moving in the right direction.
He said there was we need to ensure farmers on ground were reached to enhance adoption of local appropriate CSA practices.
World Bank Africa region coordinator for climate smart agriculture Ademola Braimoh said going forward African economies would rely on CSA.