Chieftainess Mwenda of the Tonga speaking people of Chikankata district southern province says the current poor rainfall pattern the country is experiencing should serve as a wakeup call to farmers.
Speaking in an interview chieftainess Mwenda says that farmers should now learn to stock enough yields in case of a rainy day to cushion them during seasons like this.
The traditional leader has also observed that Zambians are wasteful by nature and have a tendency of selling farm produce especially the people in her chiefdom.
She also attributed the insufficient rains the country is receiving to deforestation which most people have resorted to for charcoal as an alternative source of energy.
The chieftainess stressed that it is the duty of every to protect the environment and avoid practices that contribute to erratic downpour as the country is experiencing.
She is however hopeful that the prevailing situation is a passing phase which will soon be a thing of the past. Cue in chieftainess Mwenda on rainfall pattern.
”This will be a lesson which will teach us to keep what we have produced within our bags, we need to learn not to sell everything or consume everything. This is a very very big lesson for us in Zambia especially amongst the Tonga people of Mwenda chiefdom, we grow so much but then we waste so much, we can’t blame God nor the ancestors. Maybe one other thing I would want to say is that we cut a lot of trees no wonder the rainfall is now a challenge,” Chieftainess Mwenda said
And that’s where people eat wild fruits which they boil for 2 days so that poison is removed. Lets try not to live in the past. If you look at Maize production figures for the 2014/2015 farming season, Northern Province came out first coz people are doing farming and there are favourable rains but all you people do is just rant on how your god/supreme leader should be made president no matter what.
Your royal highness, much as I appreciate your observations which are by the way valid, we need to look at the bigger picture. Why do we still have the same number of storage silos as we had at independence? Why is the government selling all the maize which these farmers avail to them to other countries. You can understand why the farmers would end up selling all there produce to government. They probably do not have storage capabilities but it is the duty of the government to hold this maize in trust so to speak
I like Chieftainess Mwenda, her analysis is balanced. If UPND had her as Head she would represent them so effortless well and be in with a big chance.