Today is Zambia's 48th birthday. I've been around since #40; time flies, but not fast enough.
Celebrated by watering and weeding my garden and resting. We've got three days left of inputs distribution in Kaoma and we are leaving to return there at 4:30am tomorrow morning, so not engaging in any real festivities.
Here's an editorial from the Zambian national newspaper The Post (Tuesday, September 25, 2012):
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A nation wedded to maize
TODAY, we seem to be more dependent on maize for food security than ever before.
Maize is looked at as being the only 'food' and if we don't grow it, we fear we will not have food. Yet we are forgetting that maize is a new food to us. It is not something that has always been there in this territory. It is a crops that was brought to us by the Portuguese - just like cassava and other crops.
This country used to have a variety of crops, of foodstuffs in all its regions. People had a variety of food to eat throughout the day. And they were not dependent on one or two meals of maize nshima every day. There was yam in many parts of the country. We still have sweet potatoes, pumpkins, millet, sorghum and many other crops of foodstuffs. But all these are not considered 'food'; food seems to be only maize nshima. We have all sorts of varieties of rice that can be cooked and consumed in so many different ways. But this, too, is not 'food'.
And there seems to be an entrenched view that maize is the best means of achieving food security. Maize seems to be so important that many politicians fear to touch it because it is politically very sensitive.
As a result, while constantly making reference to the ideals of crop diversification, our main preoccupation seems to be achieving food security using highly subsidised maize production.
There is little effort to creat market for other crops like rice, sorghum, millet and so on and so forth. Diversification away from maize is held back by limited productivity and a lack of lucrative markets for alternatives to maize.
And when it comes to food security, we don't think there is any dispute about the potential of crop diversification about potential of crop diversification as an adaptation strategy. Crop diversification is a sure way of guaranteeing food security and of boosting soil health and improving the nutritional status of our people. Crop diversification is a crucial means of improving the nutritional status of a society wedded to maize nshima.
The earnings for farmers from maize production are declining. And without heavy subsidies, most of our maize farmers would be recording heavy losses and consequently, they would be out of maize production.
As things stand today, maize production is not a profitable undertaking for most of our farmers. People should be provided with alternative agricultural production opportunities that can generate new employment and enhance incomes. Agriculture diversification can contribute to this.
Out over-emphasis on maize production has resulted in low output prices and profitability for maize and has dampened agricultural growth. To reverse this trend, agricultural diversification is needed.
Agricultural diversification is not only important for profitability; it is also a way of promoting dietary diversity. It can enhance the nutritional balance of diet, which improves earning capacity of labour. All these attributes of diversification induce sustainable productivity growth in agriculture, without being exclusively related to the parameter of development.
Agriculture will need bold measures if we are to see a reversal of fortunes. More attention need to be paid to other crops. Spending over US$300 million on subsidising one crop, maize, doesn't make sense. We are not saying people shouldn't grow maize. What we are saying is that maize should be grown alongside other crops. And that maize nshima should be eaten alongside other foodstuffs. It doesn't make sense to eat maize nshima two or three times a day - maize nshima for lunch and maize nshima for supper or dinner. Other things can be eaten for breakfast that we ourselves are producing. We can also eat something else, other than maize nshima, at lunch or supper. Even the Irish don't eat Irish potatoes for breakfast, lunch, supper every day. They eat other things as well. If one travels to East Africa, one will find that the Africans who live there, although they also eat maize nshima, it is not maize nshima they eat all the time. They eat a lot of other things. It is the same for West Africa. But there seems to be a problem in this region. But even our neighbours in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia are not so dependent of maize nshima the way we are. Maize nshima may be an important staple food for them but it's not everything, it is not the only 'food'.
There is need for us to recognise the fact that we have a serious problem in the agricultural sector whose solution lies in recognising the need for crop diversification. There is need to build some consensus towards a shared vision about the nature of this problem, what needs to be done to deal with it, and the likely consequence of taking no action.
Email: editorial@post.co.zm
Web page: http://www.postzambia.com
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