Pres. Lungu Launches 2018/19 Farming Season

President Edgar Lungu has launched the 2018/19 farming season in North Western Province calling on the region to take the lead in crop diversification.

The Head of State undertook a field tour of Chief Chibwika’s farm where he led from the front demonstrating the tractor ripping, planting and hand hoe with other small- scale farmers in the area.

President Lungu said that favourable climatic conditions had now shifted toward the Northern zone of the country placing the burden of feeding the nation to Northern, Luapula, Muchinga and North Western Provinces.

“Currently, the rainfall pattern in our country has shifted towards the Northern parts of the country. This has been shown by the recent high crop production figures in Northern, Muchinga and Luapula provinces. The crop purchases by the food reserve agency from the Northern half of Zambia also attest to this development,” he said.

“North western province is within the high rainfall zone with an average rain of 1, 200 millimetres annually. This province is also endowed with vast fertile land suitable for the production of a wide range of crops.”

He also lamented the poor rainfall pattern in the Southern half of the country.

“The situation during this agricultural season resulted in some parts of the country, especially the southern half receiving erratic rains thereby negatively affecting agricultural production,” he said.

“I therefore, call upon the people of North Western Province to grow sufficient food to meet the growing demand not only in the province, but also neighbouring Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),” he said.

“The climatic conditions for North Western Province is appropriate for the production of a wide range of crops such as Beans, Soya beans, Sweet Potatoes and Irish Potatoes as earlier alluded to.”

“Turning to Mwinilunga, we are all aware that the district is well known for pineapple production. Therefore, in the spirit of diversification, I wish to implore our farmers to scale up production of pineapples and other crops which are widely grown in various parts of north western province,’ he said.

President Lungu then did a demonstration on the tractor marking the official launch of the 2018/19 season.