Fri, 25 Aug 2017 12:59:53 +0000
By Chikumbi Katebe
ZAMBIAN farmers have a lot to learn from modern integrated farming by forming cooperatives, says Agriculture Minister Dora Siliya.
Ms Siliya said the model based cooperative system was ideal for integrated crop agriculture together with the livestock and fisheries sectors.
She was speaking during her tour of an integrated cooperative farm in Czech Republic consisting of a 700 head dairy cows, supported by 5,000 hectares of crop production, part of which was processed into animal feed.
The Agriculture Minister who was with Fisheries and Livestock Minister Michael Katambo heard that the dairy farm produced up to 20,000 litres of milk per day.
Ms Siliya said the model cooperative farm would ensure increased crop production like maize, wheat, soya and sorghum and could be a source of raw produce for value addition to adding to emerging industries such as stock feed processing to support backward linkages.
The two ministers were informed that the Krasna Hora Nad Vltavou Cooperative had 800 shareholders with about 12 percent of the farmland used for crop farming.
The two ministers were in Czech Republic at the invitation of that country’s Minister of Agriculture, Mirian Jurecka to attend the 2017 Bread basket exhibition among other activities.
