Muchinga has potential to develop livestock industry

LINDA SOKO TEMBO writes    

THERE is great potential to grow livestock especially aquiculture and goat rearing in Muchinga Province, says Zambia Livestock Cooperative Union (ZLCU) chairman Elias Nkhuwa. 

Mr Nkhuwa observed that farmers lagged behind in development and information about livestock so that they could improve on their activities, especially in the new Lavushi Manda district.

In an interview, Mr Nkhuwa said during his visit to the province two weeks ago he felt the need for government to come on board and sensitize the farmers on how to look after livestock.

Mr Nkhuwa said the new district had great potential in livestock and aquiculture but lacked knowledge on how farmers should take care of their animals.    

“We feel we need to work with the government on sensitization outreach programmes, were can give capacity building to the famers because they lack a lot of information about livestock but there is a lot of potential to develop and grow the business in this area,” he said

Mr Nkhuwa further said another contributing factor why most livestock farmers were lacking in information was because the livestock camp officers were few and captured huge pieces of land making it a challenge for them to monitor their activities.

He expressed sadness that three quarters of the projects that government was doing countrywide to empower farmers, those in Lavushi Manda district were not aware because no one was telling them anything.

Mr Nkhuwa called upon the Private Public Partnership (PPP) to come on board and work in the area by signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries so that certain infrastructures in the province could be used to develop the area.

“What we would like to see as ZLCU is farmers doing fish farming and processing including goat production,

“If we have partners coming on board we want to put up a livestock mall this mall will content everything that livestock farmers need such as bee-keeping, aquiculture and livestock production and an institute were people are able to learn how to keep the animals,” he said.