By PENJANI NZIMA

A COPPERBELT based Horticultural farmer has expressed disappointment at the chemical company’s continued supplying of ineffective pesticides.

Mahongo Kakoma of Darredeal farms Kamfinsa area noted in an interview that climate change has been here for a long time but it’s very unfortunate that some seed and chemical companies have not risen to the occasion of identifying the challenges that comes along with it.

She said climate change has caused insects to become resistant to respond positively to the pesticides being used in trying to control them.

“What used to work on the crops in terms of disease resistance is no longer working. There are few companies that are research based. Everybody is using the same old formular to work on a newproblem,” she stressed.

Ms. kakoma said this is now forcing farmers to spend a little more money in trying to see what pest would really work for them.

She added this has made the cost of production to really go up much more that most of the chemicals used in this country are imported and the exchange rate is not stable.

And on the other hand, it is a well known fact that when the cost of production goes up then automatically the selling price has to be adjusted upwardly but this is not the case because the Zambian pocket is also affected.

She is appealing to the chemical companies to revisit their approach in addressing climate change related issues.

“They need to address the issue of climate change from the angle of Is this chemical working? Are these crops responding as we expect them to respond when we spray? Are they responding within the seven days or is it taking two or four days,” she asked.

Ms Kakoma remembered how effective the pesticides were in the past as compared to how it is today. She added that previously one could spray in the morning to get rid of white flies for instance and in the afternoon all of them were gone but this is not the case today.

“What are these companies doing for us?Have they really gone to the drawing board to see what they can really do to help us tackle these issues because clearly there’s resistance in terms of the response,” she lamented.

Ms Kakoma indicated that due to the extreme temperatures from August onwards there has been a myriad of insects invading her farm to eat the green vegetables because all the grass has dried out.

This is really being caused by climate change and regulating the extreme temperatures is out of the farmer’s control.

“The seed and chemical companies are really letting us down,” she complained.

She further expressed her displeasure at the Country’s power utility company schedule of giving  just few hours of power to the them thereby not allowing them to fully irrigate their fields and give the crops the muchneeded essential commodity which is water.

She has since expressed her passionate concern to the relevant stakeholders in the agriculture sector to see to it that the issues of climate change are addressed with the urgency that they deserve failure to which the future of this country’s agriculture will continue to lie in limbo.

And in a separate interview with Holland Greentech Zambia Country Manager, Patricia Mwansa who clearly pointed out that the issue of pest resistance can be sorted out properly using nature.

She said the usage of pesticides brings in the issues of efficacy, resistance and mutation of the insects.

Ms Kakoma indicated that farmers need topartner with nature and use a more intergrated approach than the bottle of conventional chemicals.

“What we’ve done as Holland Genentech is to tailor make specific solutions for specific problems that our farmers face. For example we know that the biggest nuisance in cabbages is a pest called Diamond Black moth. So, actually there are D.B.M. pherolure traps for Diamond Blackmoth. So, Instead of spraying you can use the D.B.M. pherolure traps to reduce the population of Diamond Black moth,” she explained.

Ms Mwansa said farmers can also use greenhouses that are able to keep away the pests from where the production ofvegetables is taking place.

“If you’re able to keep away pests then you’re able to control diseases because pests are carriers of diseases,” shesaid.

She said green houses are able to control the environment by means of less heat on the crops on a very hot day as well aslow levels of transpiration thereby allowing the crops not to lose water.

“We’re trying to educate our farmers thatour traditional systems of farming in the modern world also with the current changes in climate we can’t really fully depend on any more. We need to intergrate and learn what advanced methods actually exist to make farming easier and also not to destroy our environment,” she explained.

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