Vice President Guy Scott has observed that the agricultural sector in Zambia has remained unchanged for the past 50 years.
Dr Scott says agricultural sector has not moved due to the land tenure system which is customary as well as state and hoped that the Commonwealth Agricultural Conference currently taking place in Zambia will greatly benefit the sector.
The Vice President said this at the 25th Commonwealth Agriculture Conference being held in Livingstone under the theme is “Africa’s role in world food production”.
At the same occasion, Her Royal Highness Princess Anne of the United Kingdom, who is in the country, said that needs to improve food and energy by 50 per cent and provision of fresh water by up to 30 per cent by the year 2030.
Princess Anne said she is encouraged by the number of young people who are engaged in agricultural activities and hoped that they will be embedded in agriculture in order to allow the transfer of knowledge.
The Princess said Zambia has potential to develop in both the agricultural and tourism industries due to its rich soils and wildlife.
The Princess has since thanked the Zambian government and the Agricultural and Commercial Society of Zambia for its contribution to the agricultural sector.
The conference has representatives from 14 countries which include Australia, Botswana, Canada, England, Kenya, New Zealand, Papua Guinea, and Scotland. Others are United States of America, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
ZANIS
With a PhD and this guy can not even think…. we used to line up for meal meal in 1990. Last two years we have had a bamper harvest. Whats is this moron talking about.
You idoiot!! He’s talking about developments in use of water, mechanisation, movement towards value addition, intensive farming practices, perrenial farming…. need I go on? Bumper harvests have been mainly a result of God’s grace by granting us rainfall. Poor postharvest practices have seen us lose vast amounts of our produce. Remember the vast majority of Zambia’s agricultural produce is not produced by big commercial farmers, but by people like your grandfather who sell +/- 12 to 20 bags of maize to FRA
Lasy year was the first time Zambia produced a million tons of maize since independence. Is there anyone who makes sense in PF?
How much of that 1 million tonnes is usable? I you don’t understand the agriculture value chain, stick to contributing on matters in which you have some kind of education- limited as it may be
Ubunga nabuduula saana!!
Bupi…..
Unga….
Busu….
Well said Guy Scott! Issues based discussions. If we paid attention to agriculture, we would only feed Zambia, we would radiate the synergies to do with self confidence, build a healthy nation and our development would be 8 times as a multiplier factor.
Well spoken!
Changa , Kindly note that farmers are not yet paid by your same gvt and cotton farmers produced big time but look at the price issue by your same gvt. Scot was once agric minister ,what did he do apart from the pig issues and the yellow maize.
Get facts instead of being a blind supporter. I also voted for PF but not a blind supporter but just disappointed like many others
Zambia needs a real agricultural revolution. Until we are able to use our competitive advantage, everything else will be in vain. Let’s pump our copper dollars into agriculture. Look at what the dutch have done with the little land they have they even had to claim land from the sea
The King, I didn’t vote for PF, you are looking at a different issue altogether, farmers not being paid by government is not the discussion, the issue is where could we have been? Zimbabwe lost its status as the bread basket of Africa, it was going to be an opportunity for us. Nailon the point is with revenues from copper, we would have priotised agriculture. I seem to see the issue from the long term perspective. If you see tissues ( Guy Scott ) and not issues ( long term strategy) you may still not follow my argument.
Don’t even try to bring back yellow maize.
Look I am not a PF supporter, but agriculture is not mealie meal.
No 6.
In the last three years Zambia has become a significant exporter of tobacco. To say argriculture in Zambia has been stagnant beats me.
Nakambala sugar estate has been expanded with a spend of close to a R1bn . On which planet does this guy live?
PF people will never cease to amaze me. The man speaking here was at one time our agriculture minister and is now telling us that that the money we were paying him was for doing nothing? This is a confession that our muzungu is a non performer or else challenge me by pointing to any practical contribution that he has done to this nation.
Iam disappointed for this dishonest from a white man, Our agric has really improved greatly especially under LPM the wise presido and we have had bumper harvest which the same failure exported ,so who are you cheating Mr Chola BOY.
Someone remind guy that in that 50 years he was at one time agriculture minister.
This Guy Scott is a foolish Guy. What is eating him in his Brain?
Alale?????????????Euyu umusungu twaleitilapo ubunga at ‘ GUY SCOTT’ I hv just realised. awe ninkula.
Guy Scott is right. There is nothing wrong in what the VEEP has said. Try and travel around European countryside and you will see what agriculture development means. I dont know whether to say with your engineering degree you are yapping total shit. Get out of Australia and take a look at European country side. Yes, we need to pay more attention to food production and if in excess know how to market the excess or store the excess. A country must be able to feed itself!!!. So all those like our poor Engineer should learn to support those who point out where we should be going and not just critizing all the time. You remind me of Hichilema who is always crying foul insteady of offering alternatives to the ideas of the ruling government.
Well said!! You deserve a Bells!!
No12
I think you have a problem in understanding English if you can not read what GUY Scott is saying. Zambia’s agriculture sector will not reach European standards not in your life time. On the other hand it has not been stagnant as you white Chola Boy is saying. This is the same guy who slaughtered his pigs to get a quick back from government. I guess in your mind thats advancing agriculture. In my mind thats advancing him self. And today he has the moral ground to say in the last 50 yrs Zambia’s agriculture has been stagnant??? I guess he never ate yellow maize like we did. He never say people being killed lining up for meal meal at 5am in the morning. Be serious.
Even your thinking is wrong. I have no problem in understanding the English language. I do not want to reduce myself to your level so i will not use the same attacking language like you. You dont seem to have any constructive ideas about agriculture. Being in your position i would choose to keep quite.Learn to critisize constructively. Things are not about what will be achieved in my life time but it is about setting our agriculture politics on track in order to eventually achieve what European have achieved. It did not take Europeans fifty years to have what they have today but many more years. It is about having the right policies in place. Yes, somebody in high positions needs to talk about it even if some armchair politician like the Engineer tries to distort the point.
The Engineer what are you studying in Australia for you to refuse to think?Or are you one of thoese people who have been smuggled into Australia?What is bamper harvest if you cannot feed the people?Agriculture has been stagnant indeed becaue the governements which have been running Zambia only think Agriculture is about Maize,including you The Engineer.You cannot feed people on starch alone.Fruits are very expensive because they are imported from countries like RSA.Most people only see fruits when they are sick and admitted in hospitals.Apples,bananas etc are not part of the average Zambian family budget becuase they are too expensive.
Go and look at last years none traditional exports from Zambia and see what was exported… do not talk from ignorance just because some white guy has told you
Iwe Joebungla, why do you want HH to spoon feed you all the time! Just look at his achievements and get off your backside and do something yourself. Too many pipo behaving like cheerladies in this country.
As a leader of the opposition HH should be able to critisize government and offer alternatives. But this guy HH only critisizes. Anybody can critisize because it is easy. Try and show us your ideas, HH is blank. We as voters we need to hear what he intends to change or do better than what the current government is doing. By yapping against the government without offering alternatives he is just showing that he is an opportunists without an agenda for Zambia. I hope i have helped you understand me. HH must win people’s hearts from what he says he will do when elected, (but all he says are one insult after another to the ruling government.). He may have been successful personally but he is president quality. He needs to grow up in politics.
@ Joebungla if that was the criteria all along president would still be in the opposition. He insult more that you are accusing HH for. From the story that we are commenting HH has not be mentioned and yet attack dogs like you always find a way of bringing him in your simple minded comments
No 14
How much mongo goes rotting in Zambia? How much pine apples do villagers in North West produce. How much horny is being exported from Zambia now. I guess its a question of believing whatever a white man says… like i said go and look at Zambia’s none traditional exports in the last 4 years and see what has been exported.
Bwana Engineer, dont express your ignorance in the public. Just like you have rightly pointed out about Dr Scott, he is a scholar and he is fully aware of what he is talking about. Sometimes, when you dont know, learn to understand the topic then open up your ignorant mouth. For your own information, agriculture has been the worst disaster in the past three years and it includes this year, it is still a disaster. That is what Guy is talking about. if indeed we had a bumper harvest the past three years, why is mealie meal price still high? What price are the tobacco farmers getting? What about maize, at what price are we exporting the crop? How much money is lost because of the major mismatch at production, storage, export or any other consumption points? All these make what is agric.
there collusion in the milling industry and maize production does not seem to be linked to price of maize meal
“There are poisons that blind you, and poisons that open your eyes.”
August Strindberg 1841
Hahaha… i guess i can now proof that English is indeed a foreign language.
No17. The article does not talk about pricing of agriculture products… i need not say anything more
Hahaha… i guess i can now prove that English is indeed a foreign language.
No17. The article does not talk about pricing of agriculture products… i need not say anything more
I was about to agree with The Engineer(Australia) wholly but Moonga Mulanga @14 has reminded me about the impotance of diversification. Yes, like the Engineer(Australia) points out, Zambia has made strides in maize and tobacco growing but more can still be done. Unfortunately, as Moonga Mulanga, points out Zambia is not doing well in the other crops such as potatoes, various fruits, rice, wheat, production of beef, etc. I think a lot needs to be done.
No 21
I think that a sensible observation…. that does not mean agriculture today is the same as it was 50 yrs ago in Zambia…
Eastern province is now a major producer of cotton. was it producing cotton 50 years ago?
But you were agric minister under Chiluba.
Zambia’s 2010 Agriculture exports in tons
Cotton lint (32,314) Sugar Raw (43,290) Flour of Wheat (22,481) Green Peas (2,098) Coffee (3,411) Maize (243, 863) Cotton Seed (35,318) Soya Beans (4,702) Vegetables Flesh (364)
Chillies Dry (916)
Bran of Maize (13,188) Cattle Hides (203)
Tobacco (13,782)
Total value of agriculture exports in 2010 US$ 238, 078 171
In comparison… 2010 Agriculture exports in US$
Namibia 135 272 592
Nigeria 551 338 219
Gambia 76 217 564
Tanzania 558 043 433
Zambia 238 078 171
What’s your point here? Dont. You see Zambia doing badly?
i guess maybe u understand Germany… if you read the article u would see the point
The engineer argues with facts and data; the rest of you argue with chimwela and emotions. Do yu know what the word stagnant means?
@22 The Engineer(Australia), I agree with you that Zambian agriculture has not been static for 50 years. However, more needs to be done so that Zambia becomes one of the agricultural power houses in the region.
Hi what people do not understand is that Zambia has become a major agriculture producer in Africa with only 23% of its agriculture potential land being used. I do not buy the 50 yrs stagnation story especially coming from a VP its very serious
So what were you doing when you were Minister of Agriculture in the MMD if it has been stagnant?
ZAMBIANS Please, agriculture is not Maize bumper Harvests back to back!! You need to mix it up; Botswana has more cattle than us what’s their Population? what’s our livestock mortality rate. Dr Scott is right, let’s not be narrow. How big are we in cash crops? Travel guys & get exposure and you will not make asses of yourselves.
Its time to empower the rural folk with mechanised farming equipment and information on modern farming methods. Zambia is on the right path but needs to invest in equipment at all costs.
i thought this moron was once agriculture minister.what did he do then?go to hell and just enjoy yourself as VEEP.with a PHD i expected better from you Guy.
What the engineer has done is what the VEEP for should done. It is dangerous to make such sweeping statements without data. Government should base its policies based on well research data. When I read the article I well to Min of Agric site to chech stats and as u can guess I drew a blank. Just to compliment Engineers stats
Maize 960 in 1997 to 602 in 2002, 1,161 in 2005
sorghum 31 in 1997 to 19 in 2005
Tobacco 3 in 1997 to 9 in 1999 to 5 in 2005
Soya beans 29 in 1997 to 15 in 2005
coffee 2 in 1999 to 9 in 1999 then 4 in 2005 (all stat are in 000 metric tons, FOA)
the performance is mixed as seen from data but to say stagnant across the board may make government developed a wrong policy response
Engineer (Australia) Ulekwata umuchinshi even if you think you have super brains. We should have been feeding people with well processed foods made in Zambia using Zambian processing industries if anything changed in the past 50 year. You are taking about maize which is exported unprocessed in aukward looking bags, yet we could have been exporting it as corn snaps i.e. adding value and many more products. Even the Tobacco you are talking about, we export a fraction of dried leaves instead of cigarrettes from well established commercial farms, land that is still held by chiefs.
GK we are not in a village were i have to knell down and respect some guy with a PhD who can not even get his facts right.
@Zambia One, I hope that by mechanised farming equipment you not mean developed country level, because that requires consolidation which forces smaller one out. If you follow the agriculture debt, those mechanised system in the west uncompetitive and without subsidies those countries would not compete
@ GK while you have a point about processing I think it is different from agriculture because processing falls in manufacturing or more specifically agro-processing and my reading of the article the VEEP was talking about agriculture and not manufacturing.
Engineer femo femo Namibia with a population of just over one million people earns more from agriculture per capital than Zambia this is the comparison you should be making not absolute figures
Hi
Just like wise Zambia with a population of 12million earned half of what Nigheria with a population of 150million people earned.
I agree with the veep. In 50 years of independence we should be able to do better than these statistics you guys have posted above. With 40 % of the water in the SADC and capital from the mines we could have developed agriculture to the point where it would have been the major earner of FOREX or at least a significant contributor. We are talking about 50 years. This is too long a time to be satisfied with this dismal numbers, we should be ashamed. It’s pathetic performance if you ask me.
Does not mean its stagnant
GUY WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.AGRICULTURE SECTOR HAS DONE VERY WELL DURING THE TIME OF MMD. IAM NOT MMD SUPPORT BUT THEY HAVE DONE VERY WELL. DURING KAUNDA ERA THERE WAS NO FOOD IN THE COUNTRY IF GUY YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY JUST KEEP QUIET YOU ARE JUST EXPOSING YOUR DEMETIA.
The level of expectation may differ with exposure,what is enough to one may be nothing to another,as a child i was told of a leader Kapwepwe whos emphasis was on agric, Lets co-ordinate all levels of agric for results ie production, storage, marketing etc lets chat solutions bloggers,
This guy Guy is so very funny! What did he do himself when he was Minister Of Agriculture under the MMD government? Is he admitting that he failed the people of Zambia?
Only Panyolithic f.o.o.l.s (PF) can support this colonialistic minded goon who is panyolistically insulting us thAt we destroyed this country by getting independence from his parents fifty years ago. Oppose him if you are patriotic agalu imwe.