GOVERNMENT, UNDP ROLL OUT VALUE ADDITION TRAINING TO EASTERN FARMERS

By Elvis Milambo

The ministry of Agriculture in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has rolled out value addition and food processing training to smallholder farmers in 14 camps of Nyimba district in the eastern province. Acting Senior Agricultural Officer (SAO) Golden Kunda Nkasabanya says the training is necessary to increase income for smallholder farmers and boosting their household nutrition.

The ongoing food processing and value addition training, led by the Agriculture Supervisor Anastasia Hamusonde, is aimed at helping smallholder farmers to gain innovative ways of processing food crops including adding value to the processed food. Ms. Hamusonde said processing our own nutritious food crops like soya beans, groundnuts, orange fleshed sweet potatoes, pumpkins, beans and others improves the health of farmers as locally available foods contain essential minerals and vitamins for good health.

“When farmers process and add value to their crops, the income from such products increases. Unshelled groundnuts have a lower price compared to shelled groundnuts but it is peanut butter and other finished products that have greater value than raw material. This is why we are encouraging farmers to process and add value so that they earn more money from finished products at local level,” says Ms. Hamusonde. A beneficiary farmer, Abias Tembo, who lives in Chipembe area in Nyimba, said in an interview with the National Agricultural Information Services (NAIS), that the training has helped him to gain practical skills in value addition and food processing which he will apply in order to increase income and provide a diversified nutritious diet for his family.

Basilio Mwanza from Chief Ndake’s area also said the training will reduce post-harvest losses as farmers will process harvested crops to gain more value. He urged his fellow lead farmers to adopt value addition and food processing skills so that smallholder farmers can come out of poverty. The ongoing training is targeting to reach 490 lead farmers and savings groups members that will also pass on the skills to follower farmers across the district. Each of the 490 lead farmer will train 15 follower farmers bringing the number of beneficiary follower farmers to 7,350.

The food processing and value addition training has been made possible in the ministry of Agriculture through support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s Strengthening Climate Resilience of Agricultural livelihoods in Agro-Ecological Regions I and II in Zambia (SCRALA) project.

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