The Agribusiness Focus

  • Home
  • The Agribusiness Focus

The Agribusiness Focus Colleagues, there has been so much done in the quest to improve smallholder productivity and change of the farmer's mindset to view agriculture as business

We wish all the farmers a happy farmers day. We feed the world.
05/08/2024

We wish all the farmers a happy farmers day. We feed the world.

21/07/2024

Land reforms - Sylvia Masebo

We want to congratulate hon Masebo on your appointment as Lands Minister. Land is the largest asset we have as a country, yet we have paid less attention to it.

I want to state here that we have been yawning for land reforms for a long time. For instance, it should be made into land policy that no foreigner can buy land in the country. They should access land on lease of not exceeding 20 years. Additionally, no one should be allowed to purchase land exceeding 2’000 ha regardless of the investments they want to put up.

We awaited for hon Jean Kapata to give us a revised land policy up to the point she left the ministry. Dr Muchima was appointed in 2021 and it is about three years now, we have had nothing. We ask you madam that in your remaining one year four months, give us land reforms.

Thank you.

21/07/2024

We demand that Gravazio Zulu interviews the past board chairperson of the dissolved ACC board next Sunday.

15/07/2024

Advice to the New Dawn government

I am writing this with a heavy heart. There are a few things that we seem to have ignored. Let me try to highlight them.

Corruption
If there is anything that the Zambians abhorred during the PF government, it was corruption. We understand that corruption is a complicated scourge to fight but there is a feeling from the general public that we are losing the fight. We have done remarkably well by recovering a number of properties as well as some money but we feel this is not enough. We are still wondering with clear cases such as the procurement of fire tenders!

Because we have moved relatively slow and have been too soft, we are seeing more plunder. We expected the FIC report to have show lower intensity in plunder but the opposite is true. This means that people are not scared to be involved in corruption even when they are told by the president that they are on their own. The good thing to do is to try and reorganize ACC; the revelations by one of the board members sums it up.

Economic development
This government has done very well to get the country back on track. We have the debt restructured which the previous government totally failed. This will definitely improve economic performance especially next year if we will have a good rainy season. However, we feel that we could have done even better than this. Many people feel that some of the people appointed in strategic roles including some ministries are not performing. We want to remind the president that at some point, he reviewed that the PF were teaching his people how to steal, could that be a reason why we have seen shocking revelations in the FIC? We believe that the report the president receives has some people mentioned even companies. We want to remind the president about the former foreign affairs minister’s case. He told the president that he had received a pen and a diary from a named company. Five months down the line, video showed that the minister was actually receiving money. His ministers, aides and some party officials seems to be on a dangerous crusade; it will be very difficult for many of them to even campaign in 2026. What we feel is that a number of them know that they will be rejected in their constituencies and are doing the Antonio Mwanza way of saying this is the last money. In leadership you need to disappoint people that are not effective even if they might be your friend.

Politics
We like to thank this President by strictly separating the party from its government; this is how it is supposed to be. We have seen violence and cadreism drastically reduce though slowly they are creeping in. However, we want to reiterate that most of those people you nominated in key NMC positions have gone to sleep. It will be pointless for you to be in power for only five years. The actual work of economic rebuilding will happen from 2026 to 2031 and beyond. With the way things are going, ECL can easily win or force for a rerun in 2026. It would be work in futility if nPF is allowed back; they will come and reverse all the successes you have achieved. Actually, the first activity they will do is to take you back to mukobeko as they sort others out. Who is mobilizing the party out there? Who is speaking for the party out there? The ground is slowly shifting.

Let me end here today but will come back with more advice.

10/07/2024

Wanting to ‘eat’ or continuing to ‘eat’.

The current debate about whether ECL should contest 2026 elections is nothing to do with capacity to deliver us from the economic challenges we are going through. Us Zambians should learn to be truthful with ourselves.

Firstly, ECL wants to come back so that he can protect his property and that of his family. During his seven years in power, he had amassed wealth that cannot be well explained. He could be the richest man in the country. He has seen a great loophole in the current leadership and wants to capitalize on that so that he bounces back. Once he is back in power, he will ensure that all the properties forfeited to the state is given back to him, his family and friends. Further to this, he will make sure all those that did this are either put behind bars for length sentences or eliminated. Then he will go on to change the constitution as he initially wanted with the infamous Lubinda’s Bill 10.

Secondly, those that are making noise that they want him back to come and reduce the price of mealie meal and give us sufficient electricity are lying. Many of them have pending cases or have property that they fear will be grabbed soon. These are people that benefited from his careless leadership; those that supplied air, those who grabbed plots, bus stations and many other things for their own benefit. Many of them are lazy and don’t want to genuinely work.

ECL has not capacity to solve the problems that the country is facing. In fact, he is part of those that created these problems, and if he had the solutions, why didn’t he implement them? He even failed just to have the debt restructured after paying $5m to LANZARD consultants. Zambians, let’s look forward and soldier on. We can’t go back to the leadership of cadres. Remember that we are part of the problem when we put PF in power. Are we saying from the 20 million Zambians, we can find a better leader than ECL? Common sense Zambians, let’s not cheapen ourselves to handouts that PF was giving; we can do better than that. Let’s look for an alternative person if we are not happy with the current president than recycling someone we know has no capacity whatsoever.

09/07/2024

Eligibility or capacity

Tomorrow the concourt is going to pass a ruling as to whether sixth republican president is eligible to run again for presidency. I will not dwell on whether he is or not because the case is in court.

What Zambians need to be discussing about is whether he is the right person to take us out of the many economic challenges that we are going through. Allow me to discuss this subject using several subheadings.

Debt: we are highly indebted country with debt ration of about 60% to our GDP. We are found in this problem created largely by the government of ECL and partly the late Sata. The PF government had economists who only knew economics of borrowing. They did literally nothing to try and grow the local economy.

Careless expenditure: the immediate past government spent money so carelessly. They were bent on stealing as opposed to developing the country. For instance, they spent $400m on the airport which was done in a hurry. A number of sections in the airport leaks during the rainy season. The by pass road from airport going round Cierra resort to chisamba is tarred on paper yet on the ground it is a gravel road. Money for it was allocated but we don’t know how it was spent. It was the previous garden that build a toll plaza worth $500’000 for K5m. They erected pillars at FTJ university and spent $30m. Our givernment is the only one that could go with musicians, standup comedians and slay queens to be making up beds to the UN. Every day was a party and all this was paid for by the government. We bought wheelbarrows costing $200’000 for $1m. We sent the First Lady to US with an entourage of not less than 20 people to go and receive scrap metal and stayed for over 10 days. We borrowed $750m to rebuild our railway lines yet left it in poor state than it was before. The trucks are finished and l will not be surprised if some PF cadres own some of those railway trucks.

The most violent government in SADC: we observed the worst form of political cadreism where more than six people were killed. Cadres took over strategic installations like markets and bus stops. The councils were deprived of opportunities to collect revenue as commanders from PF took over. For a period of ten years they must have stollen in excess of trillion Kwachas. It was during the reign of ECL where a cadre can wake up and grab a forest 🌳 from the people. Cadres were so powerful that they could slap a minister 20 metre away from a police station and the minister would run while wailing to the police station. It was during ECL reign that a cadre with a handful of his body guards would beat up police officers at the police station and disarm them. Cadres would beat up traffic officers that stops them to check whether they have a road licence. Some cadres had more powers than the president.

Economic mismanagement: under his rule, most of the economic sectors were running on debt. I remember going to an office of a DACO to collect data and the entire station had not been funded for three months. I had to buy electricity units just to power his computer. Some farmers that supplied maize had not been paid for years. Fuel was being consumed without paying for it. Some parastatals employed cadres in senior positions such as senior engineer yet the highest qualification for such was a grade nine school leaving certificate. The economy was growing at minus two.

There are so many issues that we can cite. It seems we have forgotten already. If we can’t continue with the current president let’s look for someone else but not ECL. Many of you that are pushing this agenda just wants to come back and continue stealing. You liked it when he spent most of the time drinking as this gave you leeway to still and supply air including rotten panadols. You don’t like the current president because he is awake but we can’t go back to chagwanomics. I hope the courts rule in the people’s favor which is the truth.

30/06/2024

Regulating the soil pH in farming

For a very long time we have struggled with low productivity in small scale farming. We have barely improved from 0.8MT to 2.2MT for 30 years since 1995. This is not a good feat in a country with very good soils and relatively good climate. This can be attributed to many factors including agronomic as well as some policies we have implemented in the past.

For a very long time, many thought it was inefficient use of inputs like Fertilisers and seed, but it goes beyond these. One of the factors that has greatly affected our agriculture is not to regulate a favorable soil pH. Of recent, we have discovered some hidden constraints such as nematode infestation in our soils, soil pests and diseases. Soil pH is a big factor and will be amplified as we endeavour to continue with our green revolution strides.

Our farmers have tried against all odds to produce even where the soil pH is very low (acidic). For instance, in the northern parts of the country where we receive rains as high as 1200mm in four months, soils are predominantly acidic. Our parents tried to regulate this by practicing a farming system called chitemene. They would chop off branches of trees and burn down. They would cultivate that particular land for two seasons before moving to a new areas. This was so possible then when our population was low; now that the population is increasing and the country is becoming more industrialized, People are farming on permanent land forever, therefore, they are not able to practice this system any longer.

To counter this problem of soil acidity, farmers need to remedy their land by applying lime. With farmers that have limited choices to make, their first choice of input procurement would be fertiliser, seed, and pesticides in that order. Therefore, l foresee soil acidity problems becoming more and more pronounced as we become more greener. Policy formulators should not forget about soil acidity as they continue to strive to make agriculture the number one sector. I can assure you that if not recitified, some farmers will start abandoning their fields. Watch out for a paragraph or so in my forthcoming coming book on soil acidity. The title of the book will be ‘Whispers in Eden, rediscovering the promised paradise’. It will hit the shelves sometime in 2025. Bye for now and responsibly enjoy the long weekend in Zambia. Don’t make that mistake.

27/06/2024

The sustainable policy on FRA food security

FRA is the body designated to procure and manage strategic food reserves for the nation. This is not meant to crowd out the private sector especially those that are in the milling business. Before FRA we had NAMBoard which was responsible for grain marketing in the country.

What FRA has been doing is to buy just enough grain and pulses for one calendar year. For instance, they would buy about 600’000 MT of maize and this was supposed to see us through the next harvest. When millers run out of grain to mill into mealie meal, they would buy from FRA. I think this policy needs to be revisited; FRA needs to buy grain to cover us for three years. We may currently be consuming about 800’000MT from one harvest to the next. Therefore FRA needs to have at any time, 2,400,000MT of grain. Each year, they will need to buy at least 800’000MT to cover for what has been consumed. People may argue that this is not necessary, why buy for three years. Here are my reasons.

Our agriculture is predominantly practiced by small scale farmers who depend on rain fed agriculture. Of the irrigable land in Zambia only 1% is currently under irrigation. This is not sufficient to assure us of consistence production in times when we have a back to back drought for instance. Such phenomenon are now happening; Kenya had two years of droughts and it lies along the equator. Somalia and Ethiopia had over three years. If we had kept stocks equivalent to cover three seasons, we couldn’t have been struggling the way we are to secure strategic reserves. We can revise this decision once we have at least 10% of irrigable land under irrigation.

The next thing to think about is increasing the storage capacity for FRA. I doubt if they have secure storage currently to keep over 1.8m MT. Some of the stocks will have be to kept under tents on slabs outside. This will require regular fumigation and susceptible to rodent damage compared to that in silos. We all support the open border policy but l can assure the authorities that with one season strategic reserves, we are likely to run in troubles of grain shortage more often. We will constantly be implementing the ‘export in order to import’ policy. We need to allow farmers and traders export but it should not be at the expense of our food security. I have shared some details in my book about agribusiness in Zambia. I promise to dedicate a chapter again in my forth coming project. If we include the mix of ZNS being involved in milling, it even changes a lot of things. I can assure you that later than sooner they will start trading in grain.

04/06/2024

Nourishing the soil sustainably pays back

Farming in modern times is more than just planting the seed and nurturing it by providing fertiliser and water. It has become more scientific in nature especially as land becomes more scarce. In olden days, farmers especially in countries like Zambia could cultivate a piece of land for three seasons and abandon it to rejuvenate. This is no longer the case now. What are some of the things farmers need to be aware about?

Soil organic matter - SOM is a very important constituent of the soil. This can easily be built up in the soil by practicing minimum or zero tillage, ploughing under the crop residue as opposed to burning, practicing proper crop rotation. The importance of building up organic carbon or SOM will be discussed in another article.

Building biodiversity of the soil. This implies a lot including increasing microorganism life in the soil. This means allowing small living organisms to build up in the soil. Killing all micro organisms in the soil will make the soil to be dead.

Having a balance of the chemical constituents of the soil. When we grow crops, they mine the soil off important nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus and many others. It is important that from time to time, we replenish the soil with these elements. There are many ways of doing this.

Lastly, it is important to maintain a balance of acidity in the soil. There is a certain optimum pH range that supports crop production. This has been be done through liming if the soil is acidic. There are two basic types of lime; dolomitic and calcium based lime. The choice will depend on what you want to achieve.

The above are not the only items you need to look out for but there are many others like soil compaction. We are therefore, encourage to practice and encourage soil health development in our modern agriculture. Look out for my upcoming book to be published in April 2025.

04/06/2024

Whoever is going to allow the cadres to come back they will be on their own.

04/06/2024

Let them talk about beef and not mealie meal in 2025

I was watching a video on Facebook of a nice looking lady who was cooking nshima in her house. She claimed that she was turning 46 in a few hours and according to her, it was the first time she was buying a Pamela pack of mealie meal. I knew that she was trying to be sensational because at 46 she was old enough to know what was happening in 1986-91.

This does not mean the cost of living is good; it is bad because of several things that have happened. Firstly, we managed the economy so poor from 2011 to 2021. We borrowed like we were going to die in 2022. We never invested well the money we borrowed. For instance, we pumped in $120m into revamping the railway industry and ended up painting old trucks of the train and the entire allocation was gone. We subsidised the energy sector on debts. However, this does not mean we have not made mistakes after 2021; we have and some of them are. We knew that we were going to have a challenging season but kept on selling grain to our neighbors even as late as June 2023. We knew that with a potential drought, the southern, western, eastern and central provinces were going to be affected more but we allocated inputs based on history. We could have increased the allocation in the north, Luapula and northwestern provinces. We could have decided to add sorghum to the inputs that we were giving out. However, now that we have learnt the hard way what do we need to do?

We have heard some very good recovery projects and activities being discussed already. The drive to provide irrigation loan facilities to farmers is the way to go. My prayer is that this should be rolled out already by now. There has been a drive to promote winter production. We also need to continue to provide inputs like was done last year in the short term to encourage production. Once we have a bumper harvest of over 5million tons, the price of mealie meal will moderate a bit. At that time, that lady will no longer talk about mealie meal. I know she will talk about something else; probably the cost of beef and pork. We are gearing to produce the largest bumper harvest ever.

21/05/2024

FRA, up your game!

I was listening to a conversation between senior chief Mwamba (l perceive so) and former President Lungu, where they were talking about maize purchases in northern province by FRA. He was saying that FRA is stopping any people from buying maize in the north and encouraging them to sell to them.

However, what was saddening to hear is that they don’t have enough buying points. The satellite buying points are too far apart. Some farmers are getting discouraged because they are made to pay as much as K45 per bag to transport the commodity. What everyone thought was that FRA would concentrate much of their efforts to secure the grain in northern, Muchinga, Luapula and northwestern provinces. They would have deliberately opened more buying points in those provinces because other provinces like southern, Lusaka, eastern and central don’t have enough maize than they have.

We request FRA to change their buying strategies and put more resources in the named provinces. What they need to understand is that these provinces normally receives less input packs and most of them that produce uses their own resources. Therefore, selling a bag at K280 after knocking off the transport cost will discourage the farmer. Can FRA do something before the maize starts to cross borders.

Address


Opening Hours

Monday 08:00 - 17:00
Tuesday 08:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 09:00 - 17:00
Thursday 09:00 - 17:00
Friday 09:00 - 17:00

Telephone

+260966849191

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Agribusiness Focus posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

  • Address
  • Telephone
  • Opening Hours
  • Alerts
  • Claim ownership or report listing

  • Want your business to be the top-listed Media Company?

Share