Mechanize Conservation Agriculture – Moonze ,Zambia

By Lembela Judy

He would always complain that the agricultural extension officers were not doing their job to help the farming community in his area.

His yields were always going down, and there seemed to be no solution insight apart from using expensive chemical fertilizers

Despite his misgivings, today, at 60, Mr. Lumumba is a proud conservation farmer in the outskirts of Moonze, South of Zambia’s capital, Lusaka

As soon as he adopted conservation agriculture, digging the potholes manually using chaka hole, he found it very labour intensive .He obviously could not expand his production.

The big breakthrough for him came late 2011 when an initiative by the Zambia National Farmers Union to mechanize small scale farms in the country enabled him to own a tractor.

With the Chaka hoe, Mr. Lumamba could only cultivate 2 hectares under conservation agriculture, today; he has put 6hectres of his 19 hectare farm under conservation agriculture.

ZNFU with support from the Food and Agricultural Organisation FAO and the European Union has realised that farmers have had difficulties to accesses farming equipment to help commercialize their farms.

The large number of livestock deaths in draft animals has also not made the situation any better.

The ZNFU is therefore working to provide tractors to conservation farmers in the country on loan.

Conservation farming is about doing less to get more. Only a tenth of the land area is disturbed.

The challenge however is that, using just a wide-bladed traditional chaka hoe, expanding production under conservation agriculture may not be a reality in Zambia.

It is a tough job to break the sun-baked soil; one has to persevere, to be ready to sow their seed with the first rains.

The initiative by ZNFU to mechanize conservation agriculture should therefore be seen as the way forward for the growth of conservation agriculture in Zambia

ICT…
NAIS/Lusaka
30/11/11

Agriculture and Livestock Minister EMMANUEL has called for increased utilization of Information Technology in enhancing agricultural development.

Mr CHENDA says information technology should be used to easy communication between farmers and agricultural stakeholders.

Mr CHENDA said this in Lusaka today when he launched the National Agricultural Information Services (NAIS) Short Messaging System (SMS) platform supported by the International Institute for Communications Development (IICD).

Meanwhile, IICD Country Programme Manager for Zambia THERESA STANTON it is important to come with new, fast and effective ways which farmers can use to get hold of information they need.

And NAIS Deputy Director MUTUKELWA MUKELABAI says the SMS system will help addressing the challenges his department has been facing in disseminating agricultural information.

Ends/NM/NAIS/Lusaka

The National Agricultural Information Services (NAIS) is a specialised information wing of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, whose main role is that of supporting the extension services of the ministry through the dissemination of agricultural information through the mass media. NAIS is also the Public Relations wing of the ministry. Among the main functions of NAIS is the dissemination of agricultural technical information to the rural communities with the aim of achieving the national development agenda through rural development in general and agricultural development in particular.

Mission
The overall mission of NAIS is to promote the adoption of proven agricultural technologies by small scale farmers through the use of the mass media in order to enhance the adoption of improved farming methods as a way of increasing their production and productivity.

Objectives:

To develop and disseminate appropriate agricultural information to farmers through the use of the mass media in order to enhance the adoption of improved farming methods so as to increase production and productivity.
To create awareness of agricultural programmes and promote and manage the public image of the ministry.