THE Zambia Prisons Service (ZPS) has embarked on an ambitious commercial programme to enhance agriculture production in prisons across the country.

Speaking in an interview, ZPS director of public relations Daniel Chiwela said the prison authority had ventured into commercial agriculture.

Mr Chiwela said to beef up the prospects of its potential in agriculture, the Prison Service had employed Agronomists from the University of Zambia (UNZA) to manage the prison farms, which have been established across the country.

"We have employed 16 graduates in different fields to enhance correctional service delivery," he said.

He said among the ventures the Prisons Service had embarked on was commercial maize growing, ranching, and poultry.

"Unlike in the past where we concentrated in areas where we know that there is good performance, we are now considering rolling out across the country. We have so far grown maize in Eastern, Copperbelt and Southern provinces," he said.

"We are expecting a yield of 100, 000 x 50 kilogramme bags of maize which we intend to sell and plough back the profits into the agriculture venture to improve the agriculture system," he said.

Mr Chiwela said under the same commercial agriculture venture, his institution had harvested 3, 000 x 50 kilogramme bags of beans from the beans pilot project in Luapula and Northern provinces.

"We have also diversified into commercial poultry farming and we have already built poultry houses at Kabwe Maximum Prison and have already stocked them with 7, 500 birds, while Mwembeshi Open Air Prison has a 10, 000 bird capacity poultry. We intend to replicate this venture in the other prisons.

"We have recently opened three commercial ranches which have all been stocked with 200 heifers each, at a cost of K500 million.

Some have already calved so the number of animals in the ranches had steadily risen," he said.

He said the ranches located in Petauke, Mufulira and Ndola Rural would breed cattle for the open air market and the project would be replicated in other provinces with Luapula and North Western provinces currently under consideration.

He said the ranches had recently off loaded 200 herds of cattle on the market and the revived piggery had also sold some meat to Master Pork and the open market.

The Zambia Prisons Service has been known for growing food for consumption and the diversification into commercial agriculture is expected to significantly contribute to boosting Zambia's economic diversification from a mining economy into an agriculture-oriented economy.