ZAMBIA must boost and diversify the agriculture sector as a sustainable remedy for the flagging economic fortunes exacerbated by the ravaging Covid-19The economy has waned on many fronts because of a number of factors with key fundamentals oscillating towards the negative angle.Evidently, the inflation rate is unfavourable, shooting to 24.6 percent in June from 23.2 percent in May while the exchange rate is at a frightening K22.60 to US$1.Bank lending rates are not attractive either, as the private sector players cannot access capital to expand their enterprises.The panacea, therefore, is to improve the agriculture sector through diversification from maize mono-cropping to a variety of crops such as beans, groundnuts, potatoes, cassava, millet, sorghum and soya beans.It is also important to promote growing of fruits such as oranges, bananas, guavas as well as cash crops which include tea, cotton and tobacco.Government should, therefore, support the growing of variety of crops instead of focusing on maize which […]
ECONOMIC REMEDY
