Zambia calls for agriculture partnerships in the region

PRESIDENT Rupiah Banda has urged the private sector in the southern African region to partner with the governments in agriculture which has for a long time been regarded as a ‘government affair’.

And Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Peter Daka has urged banks in the region to consider reducing lending rates to farmers.
Mr Banda said agriculture had the ability to turn around the economies of the region.

“This is a misnomer we need to move away from in order to give agriculture its rightful place. Agriculture is a sleeping giant that has the ability to turn around our economies and become the major poverty reducer.

“We must look at agriculture as a leading factor in creating wealth and food security,” he said.

The president said this in a speech read on his behalf by Mr Daka during the official opening of a regional agriculture and food security forum yesterday organised by the World Bank and European Union at Zambezi Sun Hotel in Livingstone.

The theme of the forum was ‘Building Sustainable Small-Scale Agriculture in Southern Africa’.

The main objective of the forum was to facilitate discussions on enabling private sector-led agricultural development with government support in the southern African region.

Mr Banda said there was need to explore best practices in the sector which would be supplemented by the private sector.

He noted there was a lot of potential for agriculture as a business and all that was needed was concerted effort from the governments and the private sector.

He said the forum should find practical ways on how to include small-scale agriculture in mainstream economics.

The president said small-scale farmers had peculiar needs that needed to be addressed and harnessed.

Mr Banda said the private sector should find ways to help small-scale farmers move away from subsistence farming and contribute to the growth of the economies by maximising production.

Broader access to finance by the farmers would need both the private sector and governments in the region to bring together public and private finance to high impact intervention.

“Finding a formula for sustainable partnerships between the two is what is going to stimulate private sector-led agriculture growth in the region,” he said.

And Mr Daka bemoaned the high interest rates that the banks had continued to charge small-scale and commercial farmers.

He said in order to stimulate growth in the agricultural sector, there was need to reduce the lending rates, which he described as exorbitant.

“The money which the banks are lending belongs to the people. There is no way that the bank will give you five per cent as interest when you bank with them and when you want to borrow they will charge you interest at 25 per cent,” Mr Daka said.

International Finance Corporation acting general manager, Emmanuel Nyirinkindi said the agriculture sector in Africa was faced with various challenges which required unity among countries to be solved.

Mr Nyirinkindi said there was need to create investment opportunities and new partnerships, adding that IFC wanted to help boost private sector-led investments in the agriculture sector in the region.
Times of Zambia