By Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba
HH PUSHES BAD LAW TO PROTECT SEED GROWERS, AND OUTLAW TRADITIONAL SEED VARIETIES
A law to protect giant agribusiness and seed growers like Monsanto is underway.
The draft law designed to repeal the Plant Breeder’s Rights Act, 2007
(Act No. 18 of 2007) will create the Seed Control and Certification Institute and will outlaw unregistered varieties, such as traditional seeds, from being planted in Zambia.
Further the law will protect, guarantee and secure the rights of plant breeders.
Plant breeders are basically genetic engineers and their main objective is to improve crops by utilizing different breeding techniques.
But leading seed company Monsanto has been sued several times for selling GMO strains to poorer countries, but ultimately the quality of the crop was less, meaning the farmers actually ended up losing money by switching to the Montsanto strain rather than making money.
Further the farmers were tied to use the seeds than any other breed.
You don’t have to be a farmer to see the harm and monopoly that this law will create in Zambia.
He who controls your food, controls you. If you can’t grow what you eat, you become a slave to whoever grows the foods..the grower depends on the seeds.
Growing seeds will become a singular and monopolistic undertaking to control the value chain.
HH does not mean we’ll for Zambia. What matters for himself are big business interests and the indirect personal financial interest he is able to draw from them. HH is not a patriotic Zambia and far from being either a nationalist or pan-Africanist. His appetite for money for himself is what is sinking his UPND government.
I meant to write: HH does not mean well for Zambia. What matters for himself are big foreign business interests and the indirect personal financial interest he is able to draw from them. HH is not a patriotic Zambian and far from being a nationalist or pan-Africanist. His insatiable appetite for money for himself is what is sinking his UPND government. Another 5 years of HH after 2026 would sound a death knell for mother Zambia. Zambia deserves better than having HH at the helm. He is too much of a dirty dealer whether with our minerals or anything else.
In your eyes he’s dirty but in my eyes and many of us he’s a decent leader
Vote wisely vote HH7 in 2026/31
Hakainde is a pure conman.
I have been saying this since I realised it myself in November of 2021.
So so disappointed in this tribalist conman.
Vote wisely in 2026.
I don’t know how Mr. Mwamba managed to become a journalist because clearly he doesn’t understand plain English. Nowhere in this proposed law does it say people can’t plant local or traditional seed as it may be. The law being referred to is talking about NEW variety of seed not old seed. In other words, this law is talking about companies which produce seed that the new seed to sale to farmers or general public that it should be certified to make sure it meets certain standards, it not talking about an individual who has seed they want to plant for their field.
Surely is it not good to make sure that the new seed meets standards and does not harm consumers and the environment? Aren’t we the say Zambians who complain about GMO food but when the government using the proposed law tries to ensure public food safety and that the public is not subjected to dangerous food through uncertified seed but again we complain, what kind of people are we surely?
For Mr. Mwamba and those who may not know, most countries do not allow any plant and animal varieties to come in to their countries without scrutiny and certification to ensure the new variety does not contaminate their indigenous plant or animal varieties but in Zambia people like Mr. Mwamba want let it be a free for all affair and when things go sour he will be the first one to say government did not do anything to protect the country from such. When will this man ever be patriotic and not propaganda all the time?
Perhaps we should dig a little deeper to find out, among other things, the following basics:
1. What type of journalism he was taught;
2. Which institution taught him journalism;
3. Who taught him journalism;
4. What qualifications he obtained in journalism.
HH cannot champion any law on his own. There’s a whole chain of technocrats in the Ministry of Agriculture, seed growers,
farmers, agricultural researchers and seed companies themselves. These are the ones to hold accountable. What are they saying about this proposed law?
I don’t know how Mr. Mwamba managed to become a journalist because clearly he doesn’t understand plain English. Nowhere in this proposed law does it say people can’t plant local or traditional seed as it may be. The law being referred to is talking about NEW varieties of seed not old seed. In other words, this law is talking about companies which produce seed that the new seed to sale to farmers or general public that it should be certified to make sure it meets certain standards, it is not talking about an individual who has seed they want to plant for their own field.
Surely is it not good to make sure that the new seed produced meets standards and does not harm consumers and the environment? Aren’t we the same Zambians who complain about GMO food but when the government using the proposed law tries to ensure public food safety and that the public is not subjected to dangerous food through uncertified seed again we complain, what kind of people are we surely?
For Mr. Mwamba and those who may not know, most countries do not allow any plant and animal varieties to come in to their countries without scrutiny and certification to ensure the new varieties do not contaminate their indigenous plant or animal varieties but in Zambia people like Mr. Mwamba want let it be a free for all affair and when things go sour he will be the first one to say government did not do anything to protect the country from such. When will this man ever be patriotic and not do propaganda all the time?
Reply
I plant local maize variety which is more disease resistant than store varieties. I generate my own seed from the crop I grow.
I have never been forced to grow other varieties by anyone. To allege that government is marginalising traditional maize growers is total nonsense. Try some other propaganda. This one won’t stick.
Read the bill not what you’ve read from your grandmaster of lies and propaganda!
HH is a great leader and doing greatly well for mother Zambia. In my eyes he is a patriotic Zambia who has the heart for this country and its citizens while in some other people they see him differently that is how democracy is.
The person who teaches me how to fish than relying on already catch fish for my provision is a good leader because he is teaching and training me how to become independent and self sustaining and I should also teach others and my children the same. Others will receive it while others will not, it is an individual choice those who don’t want, can do what they want those who want can do so and also abide by the law by following it, that is being righteous. Good principle.
Even the law that this Emmanuel Mwamba who was the aid to the late president Chiluba is talking about have been there before, this government is just adding or strengthening it for the good course. Which in their political language is amending, like they are trying to amend the order act law for transition to the current global trend. It’s not HH per say. It’s just hatred type of thinking.
Otherwise there’s nothing that someone like Mwamba can secretly go round the government offices in the dark in the hide and seek model using the corrupt civil servants / officers who in the actual sense are part of the government because they advise and draft these laws and again advise government on the foregoing of the policies and how the transitioning of the old laws are being realigned in order to fit into the global community but to just be giving this traitor, the already yet but to be given to the public information is very worrying? Why and for what benefit, is the information being secretly sold or given out before ripe for the public? which, after all will still be brought to the public for use?, why? Why? and for what purpose.
PF have MPs in Parliament, you mean they don’t know about this law; infact they are part of the house that makes or enacts laws,they contribute and further deliberate, but why the desperation Mr mwamba.
Bwafya pa Z. But the good message to the hardworking wise Zambians is that all things work well or for good for or to those who believe and also believing in themselves. Epela.
In typical pfidiot style, bwamba at it again. Were just were does this draft bill talk about Monsanto to the exclusion of any other seed producers local or foreign? Were does the draft bill stop anyone from planting traditional or indigenous seed?
Bwamba get a life, not so long ago he manufucters booing at the stadium now it’s a new law supporting Monsanto for seed variety?? What are you bwamba, ndiwe chichani iwe…stupid pfidiot!!!!
Booing will continue. That’s why the opposition are not allowed to campaign coz they are likely to draw huge crowds which may unsettle the Demi god.
Most of you criticizing Emmanuel Mwamba are dull praise-singers who do not understand what ambassador Mwamba is saying. Ask yourselves why Southern Province is predominantly a maize growing region. You may not understand that white colonialists discouraged the growing of cassava there. Ask yourselves why Zimbabwe whose agriculture was predominantly in the hands of white farmers does not have local maize seed varieties. You may not understand that hybrid seed was the one that was encouraged. I have been to Zimbabwe several times and never came across local maize seed varieties. I had Zimbabwean in-laws in my home some years back and could not believe to see the local maize seed variety. They told me what I knew about Zimbabwe that there were no longer local varieties. They decided to sneak smaller quantities of the local maize seed varieties in their luggage in the hope of planting this at home. This is due to the large advantages that go with local seed varieties. If you pass that law Mwamba is talking about, you allow multinational seed companies like Monsanto to control what you grow in your country and what you eat.
It’s funny for someone calling others dull when he/she has not read the said law and can’t point at even one line in the law which talks about local seed. Just because Mr. Mwamba says so then we should all blindly follow like you, how myopic is that thought.
Maybe for your easy understanding, the law want to regulate the seed variety development by making sure that every new variety is certified before it is allowed to be sold to the public to protect the consumer from dangerous food.
By the way, Mr. Mwamba is no longer ambassador so the title is no longer valid for him so I don’t know why he keeps using it. It’s not a title you acquire like an academic one which you keep “forever” but a mare appointment which one loses upon revocation of the appointment.
What we are saying bab Muna Kaliba is-
What we are saying my brother is that these laws have been there starting mostly in MMD in President chilubaz time whom he, Emmanuel Mwamba served as presidential Aid person. It is not of today infact Chanse Kabaye the Director and owner of Seedco if I am not mistaken was the Minister of Agriculture in Chilubaz MMD government. This is the team that changed our seed varieties mostly doing away with our local breeds and promoting their own manufacturers in lab seed for their businesses and others in their empire. Kindly ask Chanse Kabaye why they promoted the now mostly used modified seed instead of our local varieties. You and me remember crop rotation where even fertilizer was not mostly there in the days past up to UNIP government but what is prominent today is the many and different modified seed varied talk of SEEDCO, MRI, Zambezi seed ETC. So we are saying these laws were already enacted and it’s just some minor changes otherwise all has already been if so to say but the truth is that unless we take a unified holistic non partisan approach to counter this move and wave otherwise to point at one person to say he is the causer that to me is not right or fair. Mwamba was there even when all these laws were being enacted, he was also our Zambian representative to the AU he know all these things and changes that are taking place globally though he as usual is pretending not to know. This is the angle where my point is being driven from.
Mwaamba just has a malicious mouth. He is filled with hate and bitterness
There is a group on WhatsApp debating this seed business and there has been no conclusion yet.
Mr. Mwamba is an alarmist, a peddler of half truths and blatant lies. He at one time accussed Dr. Sishuwa of treason and had to compensate him K30000(?) when he was sued.
He is the epitome of Mr. Lungu’s PF hypocrisy, lies and lawlessness. He is an expert at twisting facts to further his political agenda. Reading his posts is a waste of time.