•Zambia can easily become self-sufficient in fish production and sell the surplus to other countries within the region.

By STEPHEN KAPAMBWE –
The statement by President Edgar Lungu that it is shameful for Zambia to be importing fish from China in this day and age speaks volumes, firstly about Zambia’s failure to harness its potential in fish farming and, secondly, about the country’s perpetual dependence on rain-fed agriculture.
Zambia has a total land area of 752,000 square kilometres, which is punctuated by more than 20 waterfalls, among them, the Victoria Falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the world.
It must be noted that other waterfalls exist which are yet to be discovered.
The country holds an estimated 40 per cent of Southern Africa’s water resources in its lakes and meandering rivers, giving it undue advantage when it comes to economic activities like agriculture, tourism and hydro-electricity generation.
Like some people have said in the past that Zambia is indeed a sleeping giant economically.
Unfortunately, the natural endowments Zambia has have largely remained untapped as the country has nothing to show for its rich water resources, its vast land and favourable climate.
Nearly a year ago, Jihai Agriculture Investment and Development Group chairperson Yao Yunwu told former Information and Broadcasting Services minister Joseph Katema that agriculture in Zambia had
remained largely underdeveloped.
Mr Yao said this when Dr Katema visited Jihai Agriculture Investment which has built a mushroom-producing factory at the Lusaka East Multi-Facility Economic Zone (MFEZ).
He said China had managed to develop its agriculture sector to a point where millions of Chinese derived their livelihood from mushroom cultivation alone.
“China has over 30 million people who are engaged in the mushroom industry and Zambia can learn from this because it has a good and suitable climate for mushroom cultivation,” Mr Yao said.
The business executive, who is a researcher, said Zambia had 40 million hectares of arable land out of which less than 10 per cent had been developed.
He said whereas products from mining, which Zambia’s economy heavily relies upon, were non-renewable and the production ruinous to the environment, agricultural development was sustainable and beneficial to
generation after generation.
Jihai, which originates from China’s Jinlin province and has agricultural investments in Russia, is currently building a mixed farming project at the MFEZ involving vegetable production, crop cultivation, animal husbandry – involving keeping of cattle and goats – as well as fish production at its scenic leisure resort where an artificial river has been developed.
The Jihai mushroom factory, which is the first mass mushroom production centre in Zambia, will cover 70,000 square metres when fully built.
The strictly organic farming project is part of the Jihai’s Circular Agriculture or Cultivation Industry farming methods which rely on recycling different locally available materials to create products and
by-products that are used to fertilise the environment to enhance further production.
Jihai is also an advocate of Recycling Agriculture which encourages zero generation of waste materials. In other words, everything is useful.
As of last year, Jihai was producing 15 tonnes of fresh mushroom everyday using local materials.
The factory does not rely on land to grow the mushrooms. The whole production process is done in warehouses, using local inputs including labour.
The process starts by mixing cotton seed wool and sawdust which are used as a base and fertiliser on which the mushroom or fungus is grown.
The different materials are placed in containers in readiness for sterilisation.
During sterilisation, mushroom seeds are placed in the packaged materials in a sterile environment before being moved into a room where they fruit. They are later moved to a spawn running room.
After spawn running, the packages are inoculated before the edible fungus or mushroom is allowed to grow to the harvesting stage under controlled temperature, humidity and water intake.
After harvesting, the product is packaged and prepared for the market.
Using this process, Jihai produces oyster, king oyster and shitake types of mushroom which are organically produced without the use of any chemicals.
The company started by supplying the local market.
Its vision was to expand production and initiate mushroom exports to Malawi and Tanzania which were already requesting for supplies of the Zambian produced mushrooms.
This is a typical example of what Zambia can do if it harnessed its agriculture potential because whereas mushroom, for example, is a delicacy, its production has been seasonal and tied to rainfall.
But through research, Jihai has shown that fresh mushroom cannot only be grown but also enjoyed all year round.
Jihai also had planned to take advantage of direct flights between Zambia and Dubai to expand the export of mushrooms towards the Far East.
Jihai plans to extend its knowledge and expertise to small scale farmers whom it hoped to organize into an out grower scheme.
The company, for example, researched and developed low cost methods and tools which small-scale farmers could use to cultivate mushrooms at a small scale level.
This approach of involving local people in profitable agriculture based activities has already producing encouraging results in Eastern Province where the Wildlife Conservation Society of Zambia devised the
Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO) which has led to commercial production of rice, groundnuts, honey, soya beans and peanut butter under the It’s Wild brand.
The COMACO initiative has been so successful among local communities that it led to poachers abandoning illegal hunting of wildlife in preference to farming.
Under COMACO, local small-scale farmers formed a company that bought farm produce at competitive price. The company is equipped with food processing plants which produced, packaged and branded things like peanut butter, rice, soya flour and supplied these to super markets countrywide.
Today, COMACO’s It’s Wild brands like Chama rice, groundnuts and peanut butter can be obtained from leading chain stores like Shoprite which has outlets countrywide.
Growing populations world over have translated into an increasing demand for fish and fish protein, which has resulted in widespread over-fishing in wild fisheries hence the introduction of control
measures like the annual fish ban in countries like Zambia to control fish stocks.
But other countries have used this demand to develop their own fish farms and cash in on the growing fish demand.
China is one of the countries that has made progress in the area of fish farming. The country holds 62 per cent of the world’s fish farming practice.
Fish farming offers fish markets an alternative and renewable source of fish other than the traditional sources, the lakes, rivers, seas and oceans.
With prevailing favourable climatic conditions and its central location, Zambia can easily become self sufficient in fish production and sell the surplus to other countries within the region.
This would create employment in local fish farms and earn the country foreign exchange from fish exports.
“This is an eye opener for me,” President Lungu remarked when he visited Palabana Fisheries in Chongwe recently.
“We have to reverse the trend. Zambia should start exporting fish. With so much abundant water and unutilised labour, I think we can go back (at the top) where we belong,” Mr Lungu said.
The President said, “It is criminal to imagine that we are importing fish from China when fish is an industry in Zambia.”
He described the situation as being “…such a shame!”
“Where were the Zambians all these years? I think we have so much water in the northern part of Zambia – Luapula and Northern and we are going to use that water to make sure we restock and get to the level we are supposed to be,” he said.
Zambia currently imports 45,000 tonnes of fish every year from China.
This is in spite of the country having more than 20 million hectares of land covered with water.
President Lungu said the Government in partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB) has provided US$50 million for acquaculture to help fish farmers in Zambia.
This could be the turning point Zambia requires to transform agriculture in general and fish farming in particular into an all-year economic sector.