Ministry of Agriculture Assistant Director for Crop Production Alick Daka says the Ministry is confident that Chongwe district will produce very high yields of maize this year.
Mr. Daka stated that this is attributed to the high levels of rainfall that the area has been receiving coupled with efforts by the government to distribute inputs to farmers on time.
He noted that all the 17800 farmers in the district who are registered under the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) were able to redeem farming inputs on time.
ZANIS reports that Mr. Daka indicated that a lot of crops in many fields are growing healthy while a number of individual’s fields which were planted early are already tussling.
He said this when he gave a brief overview of the crop performance in Chongwe to Ministry of Agriculture’s Permanent Secretary for Administration Yvonne Mpundu who was in the district to officiate a 5 days training of trainers for Agriculture extension officers and assistants.
Mr. Daka also informed the Permanent secretary that the Ministry had received overwhelming response from farmers in the area towards the Sustainable Agriculture Financing Facility (SAFF).
“We received 996 applications for SAFF loans under the banks and so far, 199 farmers in the district have since accessed these loans,” Mr. Daka said.
Meanwhile, Ms. Mpundu indicated that the training is aimed at equipping officers with knowledge and skills to adequately respond to any outbreak of army worms in the area.
Ms. Mpundu explained that despite the country recording minimal cases of outbreaks of the pests, the government has put various measures in place to respond to any possible outbreaks such as the training.
She also added that the Ministry has procured chemicals at a cost of over K17, 000,000 million that will be distributed to farmers whose fields will be affected by the worms.
“As a Ministry, we procure chemicals which are used to spray fields that are affected by army worms every year. This is one of the measures that government has put in place to prevent loss of crops,” Ms. Mpundu said.
She further commended officers under the Ministry of Agriculture for being prepared to handle any outbreaks of army worms.
