Lusaka — Speaking at the official opening of the workshop on women and youth in agriculture in Zambia, Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Dora Siliya, urged Women and Resources in Eastern and Southern Africa (WARESA) to continue supporting and working with farmers at district level and help them to find market for their produce.
Honourable Siliya observed that most farmer organisations are weak and hence their inability to negotiate good prices for their produce. "Farmers' organisations in Zambia should be depoliticized and instead focus on agriculture as a means of livelihood and as a business".
She also urged WARESA to facilitate participation of women and youth in gainful and sustainable agriculture activities. Minister Siliya emphasized the critical need for statistical data on women in agriculture and a tracking system on the farming activities of women in the sector as a tool for informed decision making. "Statistical data will help government to make well informed decisions and provide technical and financial support where it is needed" she said.
Providing testimonies on their experiences as women farmers, a select group of participants highlighted challenges faced in the field to include; access to loans, access to land, cost of inputs, access to markets, and access to modern farming technologies including seed and irrigation.
Speaking at the same meeting, Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Southern Africa, Chief, Subregional Initiatives Section, Mr. Mzwanele G. Mfunwa, said that ECA recognized the key role that regional and sub regional institutions as well as civil society organisations play in strengthening regional integration and addressing priority development challenges in Africa in general, and in Southern Africa. "Partnership of this nature will allow us to benefit from each other's comparative advantages and strengths in various areas of collaboration", he said.
Mr. Mfunwa said that ECA partnered with WARESA in organizing this workshop as the theme was in line with ECA's mandate which includes the provision of technical support in regional integration; natural resource management; gender and development; climate change; food security and agriculture; and capacity building towards generating sound, accurate, timely and gender disaggregated statistics.
He invited all stakeholders at the meeting to not only offer recommendations, but work together to ensure that global, regional and national development goals are achieved.
Meanwhile, Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) Representative in Zambia, Mr. George Okech, highlighted that reducing gender inequalities in the agriculture sector clearly holds great promise for FAO's mandate of reducing poverty and injustice in the world.
Mr. Okech, emphasized that achieving food security and nutrition for all depends, to a great extent, on the equality of rights and opportunities women and men have and on their capacity to thrive as actors within their social and economic contexts.
"FAO has been working with Government of Zambia in all aspect of agriculture and rural development, food and nutrition security, natural resources management and climate change" he said. Mr Okech also said that addressing cross-cutting issues such as gender, the country programming framework signed by FAO and the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture was very explicit with regards to using a gender equality approach in FAO's programming and partnerships in Zambia.
