Hunger looms in Mazabuka wards

Hunger looms in Mazabuka wards
By Henry Chibulu in Mazabuka
Mon 05 Mar. 2012, 11:57 CAT

HUNGER is looming in Kasengo and Chitete wards of Mazabuka following a dry spell experienced by farmers in the two areas. But Mazabuka district commissioner Eugine Munyama says the government is aware of the poor harvest in some areas and has since sent officers to conduct a crop assessment.

He said all areas facing a looming hunger situation will be visited by officers from the Ministry of Agriculture but added that Mugoto is one area whose assessment report has been completed.

Munyama said the officers recommended that relief food supplies be sent to the affected community.

Both Kasengo ward councillor Shephard Mweene and his Chitete counterpart, Shizwell Mainza said the situation in the two wards was desperate and calls for urgent government intervention because no farmer will record a good harvest.

The duo said the government would be required to send relief food supplies to the two areas until the next farming season because people have no means to sustain their families.

They commended the government for promptly providing farming inputs under the Farmer Input Support Programme.

Meanwhile, the two civic leaders have also praised the government for sending veterinary officers to vaccinate their animals currently dying from corridor related diseases.

The councillors said quick government intervention on the matter has cheered cattle farmers whom they said had no capacity to protect their animals.

They stated that before government intervention, cattle farmers were selling animals as low as K200,000 in order for them not to completely lose out.

Two weeks ago, Mazabuka mayor Lloyd Buumba also called on the government to intervene and assist poor farmers in protecting their animals against livestock diseases.

Buumba said farmers had no capacity to buy veterinary drugs to treat their animals because they spent all their moneys on agricultural inputs for this farming season.

The cattle population in Mazabuka has been decimated by corridor diseases and previous attempts by the government to restock the cattle population have yielded negative results because of endemic livestock diseases.

Vaccination of cattle by cattle farmers has equally proved to be a problem as farmers have not appreciated cattle farming as a business.