Chongwe District Commissioner, Evans Lupiya has called for inclusiveness in the agriculture sector to promote economic transformation in the country.
Dr. Lupiya said inclusive economic transformation can be actualised through investment in sustainable agriculture practices and supporting small scale farmers to improve their productivity as well as enable them to easily access markets for their produce.
He said agricultural practices such as value addition will provide support to women and youths who are also key in the sector.
Dr. Lupiya was speaking when he officially opened the District Agriculture show at Chongwe High school held under the theme ‘Inclusive economic transformation’.
He stated that farmers can also play a critical role in promoting inclusive economic transformation by forming cooperatives and groups.
Dr. Lupiya states that government is implementing measures to ensure that the sector remains inclusive and sustainable to alleviate poverty and develop the economy of the country.
He urged farmers in the district to continue embracing climate smart agricultural practices to counter the effects of climate change on their farming activities.
Dr. Lupiya stated that practices such as Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) and irrigation respectively have the potential to not only grow the country’s economy but also improve their livelihood.
He further called for a multi-sectoral approach involving various stakeholders such as the private sector, civil society organisations and farmers themselves to promote inclusive economic transformation in the agricultural sector.
Meanwhile, Chongwe District Show society Chairperson, Alice Musingilo appealed to government and other relevant stakeholders in the area to help the society to find land where the District Agriculture show can be hosted.
Ms. Musingilo stated that Chongwe Secondary School where the show is hosted every year is not conducive for the event as it inconveniences both pupils and the farmers.
She also called on government to consider increasing the number of beneficiaries under the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) as Chongwe is predominantly a farming area with a lot of small scale farmers.
“As you are all aware, Chongwe is predominantly a farming area with a huge number of small scale farmers. The district has 50,000 registered farmers but only 18,000 of them are beneficiaries of FISP,” he said.
“We are therefore appealing to government to come to our aid by increasing the number of FISP beneficiaries in our district,” Ms. Musingilo stated.
Ms. Musingilo further called on the Ministry of Agriculture to consider re-demarcating agriculture camps in the area as most of them are too vast for agriculture camp extension officers to manage.
Inclusivity for gays needed too.