Small-scale farmers need negotiating skills’
SMALL- SCALE farmers should be empowered with negotiating skills on various Government agriculture policies in order to meet their needs and help improve productivity in the sector, the East and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum (ESSAF) has observed.
ESSAF Country Coordinator, Henry Singini, said that most peasant farmers in the Southern Africa Region lacked the capacity to negotiate for their needs in the sector resulting in low productivity.
He said this when he paid a courtesy call on Monze District Commissioner Cyprian Hamanyanga at his office in Monze on Monday.
ESSAF is a consortium of small scale farmers in Southern and Eastern Africa and aims at promoting indigenous crops and building capacity among farmers and currently operates in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia,
Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Mr Singini observed that building capacity for small scale farmers to air their grievances with a united voice on various government policies was paramount if the agriculture sector was to register a sustained positive growth.
“There is an urgent need to build the capacity of small scale farmers not only here in Zambia but the entire Southern and Eastern Africa region to be able them engage governments on various issues affecting them.
“For instance we have some stalled projects here in Monze such as the feeder roads and hitches in accessing inputs under the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) but because the farmers have little capacity to engage Government, these issues will continue to affect them,” he said.
Mr Singini said ESSAF was equal to the task to build capacity among small scale farmers to enable them have negotiating powers on issues affecting the sector adding that the organisation would also ensure that small scale farmers have an input in the budget process.
He stressed that lack of knowledge on the budget process was another factor hindering farmers to have a voice in the agricultural sector and in the end blame Government if their needs were partially met or not met all.
Mr Singini urged Government to improve the agriculture extension services if the country was to sustain the current growth in the agriculture sector.
He stated that the low crop diversification among farmers could be attributed to inadequate agriculture extension service officers to offer expert advice on farming activities with due consideration to climate change.
The ESSAF country coordinator said there was need to improve on extension services to help farmers grow indigenous and highly nutritious food crops such as cassava, sweet potatoes and groundnuts.
He further called for the establishment of a seed bank for indigenous crops which he noted were on the verge of extinction if no remedial measures were taken.
And Monze District Administrative Officer Ms Gorreti Bbalo said building capacity was crucial to addressing numerous challenges farmers faced in the agriculture sector. She assured the organisation that Government was committed to improving the agriculture sector through various interventions such as the FISP and improvement of extension services among others.