By Gloria Siwisha
The Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV), has called for strengthened collaborations among stakeholders in the agriculture value chain in order to mitigate the negative effects of climate change on national food security efforts.
And the organisation has disclosed that it has reached over 25,000 smallholder farmers with climate smart agriculture technologies in five provinces of Zambia through its 7.29 million euros worth ‘Increasing Climate Resilience in Energy and Agriculture Systems and Entrepreneurship’ (INCREASE) project.
SNV’s Monitoring and Evaluation consultant Kondwani Mumba says collaborations provide opportunities for stakeholders to input and contribute to the development and improvement of measures that ultimately increase the resilience of smallholders to climate change.
Mr Mumba said issues of climate change touched on many facets of people’s day-to-day lives, and that no one individual entity could solve them all.
“For us it’s very important to recognize that, as an individual entity, it’s difficult for us to be able to achieve the required impact to help people cope with climate change. So, it’s important to bring on board all the stakeholders so that we are speaking one language; doing the same activities, and creating maximum impact for our smallholder farmers,” he said.
Mr Mumba was speaking in Chipata, during a stakeholders’ consultative meeting meant to share the milestones recorded in the INCREASE project, as well as map plans for future engagements.
The meeting drew participation from stakeholders from the Ministries of Agriculture, Fisheries and Livestock, Green Economy and Environment, Small and Medium Enterprises, and the Department of Forestry.
And Mr Mumba said SNV had worked with 11,500 farmers and reached a total of 25,365 farmers indirectly with climate smart agriculture technologies since inception of the INCREASE project four years ago.
He said SNV had been implementing the INCREASE project from 2020 to May 2024, in order to build farmers’ resilience to climate change.
“This is very urgent given the impacts of climate that we are already experiencing here in Zambia especially with the recent dry spell that has caused a lot of crop damage and devastation to smallholder farmers, putting their livelihoods and their food security at risk,” Mr Mumba said.
Meanwhile, the Provincial Fisheries and Livestock Development Officer Grace Lungu who also attended the meeting said, climate change issues cut across sectors thus the need for effective collaborations in upscaling climate smart agriculture interventions.
“ I am very happy to have been part of this stakeholders’ meeting because it has given us an opportunity to sit and discuss on how to tackle issues to do with climate resilience in agriculture. As you know, the livestock sub-sector is also part of agriculture and we too play a role in ensuring that our farmers are able to withstand the effects of climate change through some of the practices that we as a department are implementing,” Ms Lungu said.-NAIS