ZAMBIA’s economy has for some time been mainly dependent on copper as the economic mainstay.
In the recent past, prices of copper on the international market have been falling and this ultimately has affected the steady inflow of foreign currency into the country.
It cannot be denied that this is one of the reasons for the poor performance of the Kwacha as compared to other convertible currencies in the world today.
The Government has been advancing economic diversification to ensure substitutes of copper to mitigate this trend of low inflow of  foreign exchange due to low prices on the world stage.
And among the economic sectors the Government is looking forward to supporting to become the pillar of our economy is  the agriculture sector.
One area which  is  supposed to help the agriculture sector move into such a direction of becoming the country’s economic mainstay is agro chemical and farming inputs support programme.
Government efforts in this direction have been seen by having created the Farmers’ Input Support Programme (FISP) for the past 13 seasons since the year 2000.
The Government recently scored another success in the area of FISP by introducing the electronic voucher system to give a wide range of support to farmers to venture into various crop diversifications.
The electronic voucher system is said to be private sector driven and that a lot of agro dealers are expected to come on board as this system graduates from the piloted areas.
But are the agro dealers ready to effectively partner with the Government in this area of chemical and farm inputs distribution programme?
According to statistics, there are more than 300 agro dealers in the country and therefore, we look at the business management of small agro dealers countrywide and how they are supposed to handle their businesses.
In as much as the small agro dealers have gone into business with enthusiasm, research has shown that few have  survived and that prominent on the survival lists are agro businesses run by Zambians of Asian origin.
Agro business apart from stocking of agro chemicals such as herbicides, fungicides or insecticides, are also stockists of treated seeds and fertilisers from different companies such as Zamseed and others.
Most of these small dealers are said to have not managed to continue with the agro business because they prematurely closed their businesses and ran away with the money belonging to the suppliers.
Another factor that contributes to the failure of small agro businesses to take root and compete favourably with those run by our friends is that,  agro businesses for small dealers are only seasonal.
They only resurface to do agro businesses when the farming season is around the corner to cash in on the high rate of the turnover of the seeds and fertiliser sales as farmers prepare for farming activities.
How does this happen?
Once the suppliers entrust them with the stocks in the hope of selling them on their behalf and only to get the marked profits, they use the money which is supposed to go to the suppliers and to escape the consequences of such behaviour they simply close businesses and run away.
The profits marked on the seeds and fertilisers are small and that if one does not employ prudent management may erroneously think the money belongs to the business when in fact not.
This is the reason why agro businesses which belong to the Zambians of Asian origin seem to survive because of employing prudent management of the resources.
As the Government embarks on partnerships with the private agro dealers in rolling out the electronic voucher, small scale dealers need to be educated through seminars on how to properly manage their businesses.
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About a fortnight ago I received a pleasant surprise from the Workers Compensation Fund Control Board (WCFCB) who awarded me with the second prize for the best print media writer.
This was following an article which I wrote some time back on the plight of the workers who get injured while working.
Considering that I did not even enter the competition, the award was really a pleasant surprise and a humbling gesture to me as a columnist.
Coming towards the end of the year the award has re-invigorated me!
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