ZNFU advises councils to be innovative

ZNFU advises councils to be innovative
Written by Florence Bupe
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 4:48:06 AM

THE Zambia National Farmers’ Union (ZNFU) has advised district councils to come up with other innovations to raise income as opposed to relying on council levies obtained from small-scale farmers.

ZNFU liaison officer Coillard Hamusimbi said it was unfair that small-scale farmers should be sustaining council operations through the payment of council levies when they were not benefitting in any way.

“If council levies were such a critical income, council authorities should have been able to plough back into the agriculture sector. It is unfortunate that farmers have been neglected despite the fact that they were providing a substantial amount of income for district councils through levies,” Hamunsimbi said.

President Rupiah Banda, during his speech to parliament, directed district councils to abolish council levies charged on small-scale farmers for the transfer of their produce to the market, saying this added on to the challenges that farmers faced and complicated the pricing system of their produce.

However, some district councils have expressed concern at the abolition of the levies, saying they were a major source of their income and that they would have problems finding an alternative source of the required funds.

But Hamusimbi charged that most small-scale farmers, who were mostly in rural areas, still faced a lot of challenges in marketing their produce due to lack of infrastructure.

Hamunsimbi said council levies were economically unreasonable for the farmers especially that they were usually charged before farmers even sold their produce.