Fri, 24 Mar 2017 13:19:33 +0000
THE Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) will now support about 10 crops in order to accelerate crop diversification among farmers in the country, says Minister of Agriculture Dora Siliya.
And Ms Siliya has assured that the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) would buy all the 10 crops to be produced by farmers under FISP.
The minister told journalists after the presentation of the ministerial quarterly report to President Edgar Lungu at State House yesterday that there was need to accelerate crop diversification in the country.
She said that farmers should not concentrate on maize farming alone and that they should diversify to other crops such as tomatoes, cassava, cashew nuts and others.
Ms Siliya said that the Zambian people should be able to have a variety of foods on the market to choose what they wanted to eat.
She stressed the need for farmers to take agriculture as a business, hence the need for value addition to all agricultural products.
Ms Siliya also said that there was need to embrace advanced mechanization of farming to increase food production in the country.
“FISP will now support 10 crops in order to achieve President Lungu’s call for crop diversification in the country. Farmers should now not concentrate on maize farming alone, let’s have a variety so that our people can eat what they want,’’ she said.
And Ms Siliya expressed happiness that Zambian farmers had for the first time exported bananas to South Africa.
She explained that Government had banned the importation of fruits to pave way for local farmers to take advantage of the business.
Ms Siliya however said there was still need to market local products and identify problems that farmers were facing in order to transform the agriculture sector into a green revolution.
She also reiterated the need to introduce new crops in Zambia in order to increase variety and nutrition.
Ms Siliya said her ministry was working with researchers and other stakeholders to ensure that new crops were introduced.
She disclosed that President Lungu had requested for his office to be briefed regularly on matters pertaining to the agriculture sector.
