Tue, 04 Jul 2017 10:49:33 +0000
By MAILESI BANDA
GOVERNMENT should improve knowledge on cassava production through increased production from the current 1 million metric tonnes per annum, Indaba Agriculture Policy Research Institute (IAPRI) associate researcher Stephen Kabwe has advised.
Mr. Kabwe said this would help improve awareness for the farmers to use improved varieties and increase their yields.
Speaking when he presented a reports on the cassava outlook in Zambia at the Research Cash Crop Conference in Berlin Germany recently, he said Government should develop a set of policy measures that would help develop the cassava value chain.
He suggested that Government enacted a 5 percent maize or wheat substitution policy that would allow the mix of cassava in the production of maize meal and flour. “Cassava is the most important crop grown in Zambia after maize with over 33 percent of 1.5 million small-scale farmers growing the crop and it has potential as a cash crop,” he said.
He said since the cassava crop was resilient to climate change it had contributed to household food security and incomes among most of the rural communities especially in the Luapula province.
He explained that 92 percent of the cassava produced was consumed and that only about seven percent was traded, adding that the trading was in-country and minimal quantities of the cassava was exported to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola.
He said Zambia Breweries had created a market for the cassava in the Luapula province which they used in the production of beer making the private sector an active player in the development of the cassava value chain.
