By Francis Chipalo Organised People’s Party (OPP) President Dr. Brian Mushimba has positioned agriculture as the foundation of his “Road to Creating 4 Million Jobs”, unveiling a climate-smart plan that targets million of jobs across strategic agriculture commodities such as maize, cotton, cattle, soya beans, fisheries and others. Dr. Mushimba said job creation must start […]

By Francis Chipalo

Organised People’s Party (OPP) President Dr. Brian Mushimba has positioned agriculture as the foundation of his “Road to Creating 4 Million Jobs”, unveiling a climate-smart plan that targets million of jobs across strategic agriculture commodities such as maize, cotton, cattle, soya beans, fisheries and others.

Dr. Mushimba said job creation must start with food security, but that foundation is under threat from erratic weather patterns.

“Agricultural Revolution can be threatened by climate change variability. That is why we are building mitigation into the plan from day one,” he said.

Under the OPP’s Agricultural Revolution, Dr Mushimba said the OPP government will focus on scaling up several commodities, each with a specific climate mitigation measure attached.

“In maize, for example, the OPP will work with 10,000 medium-scale farmers each given 100 hectares to cultivate employing 500,000 people. The goal is to boost national food security and create jobs in milling and agro-processing including biofuels. To protect yields, the plan prioritizes irrigation to reduce dependence on rainfall as well as mechanization,” he explained.

In cotton, the opposition leader said his administration will target 500,000 small-scale farmers each given 1 hectare to cultivate. Dr. Mushimba said reviving cotton will inject cash into rural economies and restart textile and ginning industries. In three years, 1 million tons of cotton will be harvested creating 2.4million jobs even before down stream processing of cotton seed in oil and animal feed.

“To make soils more resilient, the OPP will promote the use of biochar to improve fertility and water retention during dry spells,” he said.

Dr Mushimba further explained that 10,000 cattle farmers will be supported to grow the beef, dairy and leather sectors, saying”The key intervention here is borehole development in cattle corridors to guarantee water supply even during droughts”.

Dr. Mushimba was quick to note that the numbers in the fields are only the beginning.

“This is just agriculture before we start talking about the value chain and other sectors,” he said.

According to the OPP leader, once production increases, jobs will multiply downstream in processing, storage, transport, input supply and exports. That, he argued, is how Zambia moves to over 4 million jobs in 5yrs under the OPP administration.

He added that the plan is deliberately designed to shift Zambians from subsistence to commercial farming, while shielding them from the droughts and floods that have wiped out livelihoods in recent seasons.