. Sinkamba
By JAJAH COULIBALY –
GREEN party president Peter Sinkamba has insisted that establishing State farms is the only way of addressing youth unemployment in the country.
Mr Sinkamba said in a telephone interview with Sunday Times that high value agriculture would benefit the economy as it would generate money into state coffers.
He explained that reorganising the Zambia National Service (ZNS) and making sure the crops being cultivated are of high value like marijuana would help grow the economy.
“The state farms I’m talking about if put in all provinces can employ about 2,000, 000 (two million youths and in turn generate 36,000,000 dollars annually which is six times our budget,” he said.
Mr Sinkamba advised that low value crops like maize would make the state farms a fail because it would lose money in paying the youths and insisted that high value crop would make state farms a success.
“We’ve had state farms before in the UNIP era which was called rural reconstruction and they can either fail or be a success because it depends on what value the crops have that will be planted on those farms,” he said.
Mr Sinkamba further said agriculture in Zambia will never improve unless the country moves from the agriculture of maize and cabbages.
