Start winter maize production, LM urges Government
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Jairos Ngoma with Dr Richard Silumbe – Picture by Fulman Mukobeko
By Collins Chitumbo
Leadership Movement (LM) Secretary General Jairos Ngoma has urged the United Party for National Development (UPND) ‘New Dawn’ Administration to focus on winter maize production to avert future mealie-meal shortages in Zambia.
Speaking in an interview amid food shortages that have hit Zambia, Mr. Ngoma said with enough ground water and arable land to grow winter maize, it is not good for citizens to have no easy access to ‘nshima’.
Ngoma reiterated Leadership Movement leader, Dr. Richard Silumbwe’s position for the country to take advantage of the young people and the Zambia National Service (ZNS) to plant winter maize in all the 116 districts and ten provinces.
“We need to go back to production as simple as all that. We should use the energy of young people, educated or not to start winter maize production. It just takes four months, and Zambia will begin to harvest twice in a year. You heard the Minister of Agriculture in Kenya bragging that ‘in Zambia, I have found land and cheap maize and labour. It is sad that a country like Kenya can be conquering us. Imagine, in this 21st century, you surrender your land yet most of your people do not know how a title deed looks like. We must praise the former ruling United National Independence Party (UNIP) for creating the ZNS and use this to attain food security,” advised Ngoma.
Ngoma wants the New Dawn Administration to treat agricultural as a business, money spinner, especially that every neighboring country is looking at Zambia as a maize market.
