• FARMERS in a Cassava field.

By SEBASTIAN CHIPAKO –
THE Smallholder Productivity Promotion Programme (S3P), which has footprints in both Northern and Luapula Provinces will next year be spreading its tentacles to Muchinga Province and will don all the seven districts in the province.
It was apparent two years ago in Zambia, first starting with Luapula Province, a year later Northern Province was included and next year Muchinga Province will be joining the bandwagon of provinces seeking to have their agricultural prowess elevated.
S3P, an International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) funded project, whose sole mandate is to ensure food security, nutrition and enable rural women and men overcome poverty.
The initials S3P literally carry the gist of the whole project.
As the words explain, the project aims to increase productivity of specific crops.
In Muchinga Province, specifically Shiwang’andu District, the project has been perceived to have the capacity to change not only lives of the rural household but also elevate certain crops otherwise perceived to be minor to higher heights.
In the province, all the seven districts will be covered as soon as the project commences in January, next year and the specific crops that the project will be promoting include: cassava, mixed beans, groundnuts and rice.
In Shiwang’andu district, most of these crops are prominent in almost all areas of the district with an exception of rice which is also slowly becoming popular.
To ensure food security, these crops will be promoted thereafter; the households engaged will have their produce marketed.
When introducing S3P to Camp Extension Officers (CEOs) in the district, Shiwang’andu District Senior Agricultural Officer Frank Sindazi revealed that some farmers have reduced productivity of these crops largely because there is no official price attached like the case is for maize.
He said it was for this reason that the project will aspire to increase productivity, subsequently increasing adoption levels of technologies and techniques.
“S3P will seek to increase production and productivity implying that volumes should increase gross sales margins to escalate as well as adoption levels,” Mr Sindazi explained.
He said the project will penetrate rural communities through farmer groups, clubs, interest groups and cooperatives across the province.
In Shiwang’andu District, the project is earmarked for launch in six camps for a start, before being rolled out to the rest of the agricultural camps.
The project has generated a lot of euphoria among stakeholders including CEOs who are optimistic that some of their problems especially with mobility would be a thing of the past.
The camps to be targeted in the district are Mukwikile, Chasosa, Mwika, Chibesakunda, Kabanda and Mwenga which are all dotted in all the four agricultural blocks in Shiwang’andu District.
Mr Sindazi discloses that the plan was to prioritise vulnerable women and youth groups as well as involve them in the project.
He explains that it was his hope that IFAD will provide his officers with equipment such as motorbikes to tackle the difficulties they constantly face with transportation.
If these items materialise, they would help improve service delivery in extension services a great deal especially when one considers how incapacitated the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock is in Shiwang’andu district.
The district for instance has four motor bikes against 25 agricultural camps and in all these camps; a CEO has to cover vast areas just to reach a farmer.
It is therefore against this background that the highly anticipated motor bikes would improve extension services for officers subsequently improving information and service delivery to the farmers.
Shiwang’andu Acting District Agricultural Coordinator Edwin Kikamba echoed the importance of this project in the district in an interview adding that it would drastically increase production of these crops as extension services would be improved.
Mr Kikamba disclosed that his hope was that IFAD through S3P would consider giving the district staff motor bikes and other logistics necessary for extension delivery to be effective.
He revealed that the district has since produced budgets and submitted for consideration through the Provincial Agricultural Coordinator’s office.
“The district has submitted activities that are in line with the programme objectives and has since produced budgets and have already been submitted for consideration,” Mr Kikamba says.
He added that with the coming of S3P, there will be diversification as dependency on maize would be lessened and aid improved production of these crops which have potential to be prominent cash crops in the district.
Mr Kikamba revealed that all these crops are grown in the district but not on a large scale hence the need to instill in the farmers suitable farming and marketing ideals.
“Marketing will be key in this project, therefore, there should be a huge aspect of value addition of these products which are already a major source of household food for most people in this area,” he said.
Mr Kikamba reverberates this point adding that for the project to deliver on government policy of increasing food production, income generation and economic growth for households, camp officers need to work extra hard for the farmers.
The crops, S3P is concentrating on are cassava, groundnuts and beans, which are already very prominent in the district, hence it will hugely be pertinent to inculcate into farmers what they can turn these crops into proper cash crops in the process improving food security among households.
The mammoth task will be shouldered by CEOs in these six camps who are direct administrators of this project and for it to be a success, it will be key for them to put the interest of the farmers first.
The project will help the local people a great deal as diversification will be largely enhanced and crops otherwise perceived as minor and just for consumption will be propelled to higher levels where they would also be marketed.
S3P is a welcome development in Shiwang’andu district especially that, it is a new district which needs more projects that are centred on uplifting lives of farmers.
It is therefore a recommendation that more of such projects come on board to not only help improving farmers’ lives but also compliment government efforts by equipping camp extension officers with necessary logistics for them to reach the furthest farmer in agricultural camps in the district.NAIS