{"id":270,"date":"2017-03-10T06:19:45","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T06:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.esaff.org\/?p=270"},"modified":"2017-03-10T06:19:45","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T06:19:45","slug":"esaff-zambia-involve-small-scale-farmers-in-monitoring-agric-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esaff.org\/index-php\/esaff-zambia-involve-small-scale-farmers-in-monitoring-agric-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"ESAFF Zambia: Involve small-scale farmers in monitoring agric. budget"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>18\/09\/2009<\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>By Business Reporter, Times of Zambia<\/b><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.times.co.zm\/news\/viewnews.cgi?category=12&amp;id=1161762345\">http:\/\/www.times.co.zm\/news\/viewnews.cgi?category=12&amp;id=1161762345<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">THE East and Southern African Small-Scale Farmers Forum (ESAFF) Zambia has\u00a0 said\u00a0 Government\u00a0should\u00a0start involving small-scale farmers in monitoring resources allocated to the agricultural sector.<br \/>\nESAFF Zambia communications secretary, Simon Mwamba said in Lusaka yesterday that the Government must also make available some credit facilities in order to improve productivity among small-scale farmers.<br \/>\nMr Mwamba said small-scale farmers had for a long time been sidelined in the decision-making processes on issues that affected their performance and operations despite\u00a0agriculture being small-scale oriented.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0\u201cWe demand for small-scale farmers\u2019 participation in the formulation, implementation and monitoring process for resources allocated to the agricultural sector,\u201d\u00a0said Mr Mwamba.<br \/>\nHe said Government should also\u00a0allocate more funds to the agricultural sector to be channelled to demand-driven research, appropriate technology and extension services.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0And Mr Mwamba\u00a0has said Government should design improved credit facilities for small-scale farmers, to enhance their productivity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0This should be coupled with improved infrastructure development, especially improvements of feeder roads, satellite depots, bridges construction and rehabilitation, and provision of solar or hydro power to rural areas.<br \/>\n\u201cWe, small-scale farmers, are grateful that the National Agriculture Policy has finally been put in place. We however demand that the relevant sub sector policies\u00a0 be developed to facilitate effective operationalisation of the policy,\u201d he said.\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">There was need for sub-sector policies such as sustainable agriculture and agro-forestry, small scale irrigation, finance policies that embrace small scale farmers and a basket support to institutions that were working with small scale farmers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0Mr Mwamba said the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) should start dealing directly with farmers\u2019 associations and increase buying points, while the associations should also be engaged as depot managers in the distribution of fertiliser under the Fertiliser Support Programme (FSP).<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>18\/09\/2009 By Business Reporter, Times of Zambia http:\/\/www.times.co.zm\/news\/viewnews.cgi?category=12&amp;id=1161762345 THE East and Southern African Small-Scale Farmers Forum (ESAFF) Zambia has\u00a0 said\u00a0 Government\u00a0should\u00a0start involving small-scale farmers in monitoring resources allocated to the agricultural sector. ESAFF Zambia communications secretary, Simon Mwamba said in Lusaka yesterday that the Government must also make available some credit facilities in order to&#8230; <\/p>\n<div class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/esaff.org\/index-php\/esaff-zambia-involve-small-scale-farmers-in-monitoring-agric-budget\/\" class=\"excerpt-read-more\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esaff.org\/index-php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esaff.org\/index-php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esaff.org\/index-php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esaff.org\/index-php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esaff.org\/index-php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esaff.org\/index-php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esaff.org\/index-php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esaff.org\/index-php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esaff.org\/index-php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}