‘FARMERS UNDERESTIMATING THE HORTICULTURE POTENTIAL’

By Jessica Mwansa

THERE are many opportunities in the horticulture sector in Zambia but farmers are failing to meet the demand of the market, AgriPro Focus Country Coordinator Claire Kleij has said.

In an interview with The Scoop, Ms. Kleij said demand and quality of horticulture products that were being produced in Zambia was low hence the need to improve on processes that farmers were working on and the investment into capital, knowledge, and the entrepreneurship skills.

Ms. Kleij said the availability of affordable technology and sufficient workforce with required knowledge was a key challenge facing horticulture in developing economies.

 “Horticulture is one of the fastest growing activities in the Zambian agricultural sector making significant contributions to the country’s non-traditional exports. The Zambian horticulture industry, although relatively young and small in size compared to other African horticulture exporting countries, has great potential to grow into a viable export industry.

 “Changing environmental conditions are impacting horticultural production, particularly the availability of necessary resources. A key issue facing horticulture in almost all areas of the world is water availability. Research is urgently needed to address issues such as development of drought tolerant crops and water use efficiency practices, dealing with increased salinity and using low quality water,” Ms. Kleij said.

And Food Lovers Market manager Henry Jere said the establishment of large retail chains and small supermarkets has led to the increase of demand as farmers try to meet customers’ needs.

“Ideally, we are not supposed to import anything. We would like to get all the products locally but as you well know, there are a lot of constraints. Currently, in terms of vegetables, we are not importing much. About 80 percent of the products we stock come from within Zambia.

“However, it is only on fruits where we have a lot of challenges as we only buy bananas and pineapples within Zambia and we import the rest of the fruits because they are not produced in Zambia and some are seasonal,” Mr. Jere said.

He said most smallholder farmers did not have the capacity to grow certain vegetables and fruits out of season because they did not have greenhouses and instead depended on whatever facility they had available, just like some of them grew onions but did not have dryers to dry the onions.

“There is a need to train them so that they can have the knowledge and skills on growing fruits and vegetables despite them being out of season and also be empowered with equipment that can help them grow products out of season so that it can enable us to buy all products locally,” he said.

He said demand for horticulture products in export markets had been increasing the drive for organic foods and had contributed to the rise in demand.