• 2020 was not a good year for Livestock farmers.
• Restrictions made it difficult for farmers to conduct their businesses.
• There was less information on the pandemic; most farmers did not understand it.

Zambia Livestock Co-operative Union says 2020 was not a good year for the sector due to unforeseen challenges.
Cooperative Chairperson Elias Nkhuwa told Money FM News in an interview that Livestock farmers faced a number of challenges mainly attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic which broke out in the country in March.
Mr. Nkhuwa said due to the pandemic, some economic restrictions made it difficult for farmers to conduct their businesses especially that most of them did not have enough information on the virus.
“2020 was not a good year for livestock farmers in the sense that I think we had a lot of challenges attributed to Covid-19 because if you remember very well, between March and December last year, that’s when we had this pandemic and it has continued escalating.”
“At that time we had some restrictions which were put across, and the measures which the Republican President announced. So it was not really a good year because some livestock farmers did not understand the pandemic,” Mr. Nkhuwa said.
He stated that due to lack of adequate information on the pandemic, a lot of farmers opted to stay home.
Mr. Nkhuwa added that business was on standstill because most of the places where farmers take their livestock for sale were closed.
“There was less information on the pandemic, which went to the farmers, a lot of them where not doing business, they opted to sit and most of the places in Lusaka where farmers take their livestock were closed, hence there was no business. Foot and mouth Disease outbreaks in some parts of the country also affected the sector,” he stated.