The Zambia Alliance of Women (ZAW) has urged the government to massively sensitize women farmers on how they can access the Mechanization and Irrigation Funds.
ZAW Programmes Manager Ceaser Katebe has told Money FM News that most farmers are not aware of such funding that exists in the agriculture sector adding that educating them on such issues will help them grow their portfolios.
“Government has a duty to publicize these funding opportunities to farmers and they should also ensure they partner with agriculture related organizations such as ZAW who are working with smallholder women farmers in six provinces of Zambia. Certain regions of our country are facing persistent drought patterns especially in the last two farming season i.e. 2017-2018 & 2018- 2019,” he said.
He said the two funding streams can act as enabler or panacea in mitigating issues of climate change.
He added that most of the farmers’ fields which were recently visited have suffered crop failure indicated that if they had water reservoirs and irrigation mechanism they could have mitigated this.
“Farmers are not aware of these opportunities which are enablers to unlock their potential. They are grappling with these challenges because of lack of information. We have trained farmers in climate smart agriculture and the only missing link is water harvesting mechanism and irrigation systems which these two funding streams can unlock. This will ensure farmers begin to grow diverse and nutritious crops away from mono cropping (maize) which will not only improve their life styles by eating health diets but will also ensure that the excess is sold to enable them generate income,” said Mr. Katebe.
“The funding streams has the potential to revolutionize farming, keep farmers busy all year around, ability to create jobs for the masses of our unemployed youths and contribute to our country’s GDP. The funding streams can easily turn around our ailing economy if well harnessed and closely linked to the whole agriculture value chain. We have we have built the capacity of farmers with knowledge to practice climate smart agriculture.”
Mr. Katebe has urged the institutions mandated to manage these funds to partner with them so that they can help in reaching out to all farmers and this will ensure not living anyone behind.