Caritas Zambia Lauds President for Committing to Food Security at UN Conference

In their statement signed by the Livelihoods and Climate Change Program Specialist, Ms. Musamba Mubanga, Caritas Zambia leadership welcomes the “proposed actions and hopes that it will lead to the preservation of the ecosystems and pave way for genuine human participation, ensuring that the experience and wisdom of our traditional rural farmers in the country contribute to the national decisions and programs to improve agriculture.”

In order to cement the proposals made by the President, Caritas Zambia officials highlight three concerns that the Zambian government needs to clarify. 

First, they say that HH’s government needs to “clearly” explain what sustainable agriculture practices entail in practice. 

Secondly, Caritas officials say that the Zambian government should shed light on “how the promotion of local breeds and varieties will be integrated and maintained, especially indigenous seed production.”

Finally, the leadership of Caritas Zambia highlights President HH’s focus on appropriate technology and innovation in the agricultural sector and call on the government to “clearly define what is meant by ‘appropriate’ as the government commits itself to ecological and social justice.”

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Last month, Caritas Zambia officials urged President HH who was sworn in as the country’s President on August 24 to spearhead  farming techniques in the Southern African nation that are environmentally friendly.

“We urge you to urgently and progressively move towards agroecology. We should adopt agroecology principles for a sustainable food system and for climate change adaptation,” Caritas Zambia officials said in their August 26 statement. 

Embracing agroecology will help the country shift from the expensive and harmful chemical intensive industrial agriculture to ecologically intensive organic farming which has “fantastic benefits for small scale farmers,” they added.

Agroecology, the Caritas Zambia officials said, “is cheap and crops grown from organic manure are far more superior in nutrition content than crops grown with the use of chemical fertilizers.”

Magdalene Kahiu is a Kenyan journalist with passion in Church communication. She holds a Degree in Social Communications from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). Currently, she works as a journalist for ACI Africa.