Dr Nevers Sekwila Mumba writes…..
I spent my Saturday here at our farm with a special guest, Dr. Bruce Mukanda, a friend of many years, a respected fellow Hillcrest alumnus and one of Zambia’s top veterinary doctors who’s been sharing valuable tips on how to take care of animas with me. Dr. Bruce is always fun to hang out with. After the day’s activities, I had these thoughts on my mind and I decided to share:
HH- FROM KACHEMA TO INSPIRING A NEW CULTURE OF AGRIBUSINESS AMONG ZAMBIANS.
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Who would have thought that a sitting president would be auctioning live cattle and demonstrating the value of hard work in agriculture and inspiring everyone to get involved? I recall people saying, “When HH gets elected, he’ll bring his cattle into town,” and I thought it was just a political joke. Boy, was I wrong!
It seems like God had a plan to introduce Zambians to a new culture of food security. To shift our mindset, and soon, we may be seeing marked changes in how Zambians look at food and agriculture. But, you will notice that in order to get to his point, three things had to happen.
● First, God prepared a president with a unique background – someone who learned the patience, discipline, and science of cattle raising and agriculture.
● Second, God created a crisis – a cruel drought that exposed our vulnerabilities and forced us to rethink our approach to food production.
●Third, God allowed this government to make a questionable decision, prematurely selling part of our strategic maize reserve without a very clear explanation.
This experience has been a serious wake-up call for Zambians, and as a result, today, something remarkable is happening. President HH has made a conscious decision to ensure that Zambians start to look at agriculture in general and, specifically, cattle rearing differently.
He has used the visibility of Presidency to target the younger Zambians who fondly call him their #Bally to turn from a culture and desire for excessive consumerism and instead to start to look at agriculture as something cool and admirable.
In his own quiet way, HH is rewriting not just the agricultural playbook, but what is and what is not fashionable by telling the young Zambians to desist from dreaming about buying that dream BMW as the first investment, but to consider having every Zambian family to first consider rearing cattle or growing maize, thereby contributing to their family and national food security and also to change the way we have viewed food production.
According to him, every Zambian – regardless of wealth or profession, regardless of age or gender, civil servant or tamanga businessman – everybody should get on board and secure a piece of land and plant something. That’s the new culture. Less talk, more action – that’s HH’s style.
As a result, even us Bembas, who traditionally haven’t been into cattle rearing, are starting to get challenged and inspired at one and the same time. We are starting to learn and get on board. Although our numbers are still small compared to our friends from Southern Province, a start is a start, right?
I don’t know if it’s just me but, who knows, maybe if Zambians could stop passing jokes and learn from the man, we could find that after HH’s Presidency, Zambian can boast to own enough cattle like our neighbors do in Botswana, who currently sit proudly among the top two producers of beef in the world. Suddenly, the thought of bringing our cattle to town will no longer be a political joke but an economic reality and like they do in Botswana, we will just let them “roam” freely in towns only this time, they will be roaming as packaged premier beef for the export market.
Cattle keeping is really a good thing.It is actually another form of banking.There is a lot of cattle in southern province.If we can have such nice breed in all parts of our country, Zambia can really be number one exporter of beef.Luapula which has a lot of water and vegetation must be targeted for cattle restocking on large scale.When President Hichilema visits Luapula next visitation it could be ideal he talks to the chiefs of that area so that the government may start keeping that type of cattle that side, later the local people may start keeping as well.In fact it could be better to spread them all over the country.Many youths in southern province survive by keeping cattle and have them in large numbers.The government must come up with a plan that can help some youths in other parts of Zambia to do the same.They need to be empowered and iam sure they will manage too.