AGRICULTURE remains the key priority sector in the growth and poverty reduction agenda of Zambia as over 60 per cent of the population derives its livelihood from it.
In the recent past Government has developed well articulated agricultural policies and strategies with the main emphasis on the attainment of food and nutrition security, promoting sustainable agriculture and enhancing private sector participation in input and output markets.
Southern Africa, Zambia included is facing the negative effects of the ‘El Nino’ phenomenon, hence, the issue of sustainable agricultural practices must be re-emphasised.
The current weather conditions require coordinated advocacy and widespread awareness of innovative and evidence based technologies for agricultural practice that can withstand these shocks.
Conservation Agriculture (CA) is one of such practices as it is critical for sustained food production in the country.
It involves conserving natural resources such as soil and water resulting in improved and sustainable production and reduces soil erosion and the occurrence of diseases and pests.
As a result, Government has been implementing a four-year European Union-funded scheme, the Conservation Agricultural Scaling Up (CASU) project in 31 districts of the country.
The CASU project’s goal is to contribute to reduced hunger, improved food security, nutrition and income while promoting sustainable use of natural resources in Zambia by 2017.
The project is being funded under the 10th European Development Fund (EDF) with a budget of 11 million Euros and is being implemented with technical support from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Agriculture Minister Given Lubinda says there is urgent need to change unsustainable agriculture practices and embrace CA because of its benefits to the Zambian people.
Adopting CA will ensure improved productivity especially for small-scale farmers considering that Zambia relies on them to contribute to the national food security status of the country.
Mr Lubinda says the private sector should provide inputs that are technically approved and of high quality and timely to allow the market forces to offer an opportunity to the farmers to exercise their right of choice.
“My ministry is proud to be collaborating with FAO in implementing the CASU project which has developed many innovations in an attempt to meet the main project objectives,” he says.
The CASU project is providing an enabling environment for farmer beneficiaries to access markets, mechanisation and additionally input and output markets.
The CASU project which was officially launched in 2013 and will be coming to an end in 2017 registered a total of 19, 503 lead farmers out of the target of 21,000 lead farmers in 2015.
FAO country representative, George Okech says 207,000 follower farmers against a target of 315,000 were registered during the same period.
Mr Okech says among these farmers, 41 per cent are female a result that has gone beyond the project target of 40 per cent.
“The project is midway in its implementation and I am delighted that it has continued building the capacity of the ministry of Agriculture extension officers in various areas critical for scaling up of CA.
These include low labour land preparation techniques, land management, integrated crop pests and diseases and weed management, financial literacy, monitoring and evaluation among others,” Mr Okech explains.
Mr Okech says the CASU project has also developed a cost effective e-voucher system for lead farmers to access inputs that are essential for the transfer of CA and technologies to follower farmers.
He says in 2015/2016 season, a success rate of 92 per cent was reached in the redeeming of inputs by CASU lead farmers.
Formulating policies that promote adoption of CA are also needed to scale it up. European Union Ambassador to Zambia and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Alessandro Mariani says the CASU project will enhance productivity, reduce hunger and increase incomes while promotingsustainable use of natural resources by adapting to and mitigating the effects of climate change such as drought.
He explains that most people in rural areas that are dependent on agriculture, experience relatively higher poverty levels, especially the small-scale farmers, as a result of low productivity.
Mr Marriani says the implementation of CASU integrated approach involving the use of mechanisation in carrying out the most tiresome operations in crop management stages can help address the problems that farmers are faced with when practicing conventional farming methods.
“Over the past years, conventional agricultural farming methods have been inadequate to meet national food requirements due to low farm productivity, the frequent occurrence of climate shocks in rainfed agriculture and the degeneration of farmer support services, including infrastructure.
We are happy that the farmers in this project are doing well according to what they have learnt from this project, we would like to encourage them to continue working hard,” he says.
Royd Mwape, a lead farmer in Kapiri Mposhi district says he has benefited a lot from the CASU project as it has helped him to have good harvest since the project started.
Mr Mwape who owns a 15 hectares farm says he has four years of experience as one of the CASU lead farmer’s and has 16 follower farmers of which six are female and 10 male.
CASU lead farmer in Mpongwe District on the Copperbelt Province, Webby Chawilwa says CA has helped him to improve on the yields as he is now able to produce four tonnes of soya beans from three Lima.
He says conservation agriculture has proved to be cheap as it requires less or no fertiliser to be used in the farm.
“Since I started doing conservation farming, my crops have improved, the health of the soil has also improved, I am now able to harvest more than I used to using the conventional way of farming,” Mr Chawilwa says.
Conservation agriculture also has the benefit of being accessible to many small-scale farmers who need to obtain the highest possible yields with limited land area and inputs.