SATA UNVEILS NINE-POINTER AGRIC PLAN President Michael Sata on 20th September 2013 opened the 11th session of national assembly highlighting achievements the government has attained in the past one year and also gave highlights on what government will focus on in the next few years. Agriculture still remains a priority sector for the government. In his speech to the National Assembly the President pinpointed nine priority issues that will spur agriculture growth in the next one year. He said: 1. The focus for 2014 is to continue investing in the crop diversification programme so that we trigger the desired 6 percent annual growth in the sub-sector. To achieve the projected growth, government will, among other things, continue the re-capitalization of the nitrogen chemicals of Zambia. 2. The Government will continue restructuring the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) aimed at providing access to inputs for 900,000 small scale farmers through better targeting. This will be complemented by up-scaling the Electronic Voucher System. 3. Government will focus its efforts on modernizing agriculture production through science, technology and mechanization. In addition government will also promote good agricultural practices which will include conservation agriculture, use of improved seed varieties and diversify on-farm activities. The measures will be supplemented by enhanced extension services. 4. To reduce over dependence on rain-fed agriculture, the government is committed to progressively bring 17,000 hectares of land under irrigation by 2016. 5. The government will continue with the construction of dip tanks and livestock centres in addition to the countrywide vaccination programme. 6. The government will continue promoting aquaculture through the establishment of fish hatcheries and lake based nurseries across the country. In addition, the government will promote fish conservation and surveillance to promote sustainable exploitation of capture fisheries resource. 7. Government will prioritize the promotion of agricultural marketing with a focus on increased private sector participation. This will be achieved through the establishment of agribusiness centres; community crop bulking and marketing centres; and livestock marketing centres as well as agro dealer networks countrywide. 8. To comprehensively address problems which we have encountered in agricultural marketing, the government will review the agriculture marketing act. To this effect, the President directed the minister responsible for agriculture to expeditiously review the act in consultation with all stakeholders. 9. The government will, in 2014, ensure that there is sufficient food reserves at all levels by enhancing storage capacity in order to reduce post-harvest losses. This will be attained by increasing the storage capacity by a further 450,000 metric tonnes, bringing the total to 1.3 million metric tonnes. Construction and rehabilitation of storage facilities will continue to bring the required minimum national storage capacity to two million metric tonnes.
Posted on: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 17:43:22 +0000
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