PlantwisePlus Blog

Blog written by Dorcas Kabuya Chaaba-National Agricultural Information Services,Zambia

Farmers at a plant health rally in Chobombo District, Zambia

Farmers at a plant health rally in Chibombo District, Zambia

Rallies are commonly associated with politics, a time when politicians present their ideologies to the electorates in a bid to win votes. But this time around, officers from the Ministry of Agriculture and livestock implementing the Plantwise initiative in Zambia held plant health rallies with farmers to share management solutions on specific crop problems.

Drawn from different districts of the country, these officers who are trained plant doctor held plant health rallies in Rufunsa, Chongwe, Chilanga districts of Lusaka Province while in Central Province the same events took off in Chibombo and Kapiri Mposhi. Farmers who attended the rallies were sensitized on how to control various pests and diseases of groundnuts, cotton, cabbage, tomato, maize and sweet potatoes.

The goal of these rallies was to create awareness of the Plantwise initiative that was launched in May 2013 with an additional focus of advising farmers how to manage pests and diseases reported in the places where the initiative is currently running plant clinics.

The production of food is taken for granted by a lot of people. But to farmers, producing a healthy crop that can give them income at the end of the day can be a challenge. Pests and diseases if left unattended to can have serious consequences. As such, farmers need to be equipped with the necessary knowledge to fight pests and diseases if this problem is to be contained. Plantwise addresses the constant struggle that small-scale farmers go through to produce food by providing affordable, locally available solutions to plant health problems. Plant clinics are at the heart of Plantwise and trained plant doctors diagnose pests and disease problems brought by local farmers using plant samples on a one on one basis, during the plant health rallies, farmers came in large numbers and were helped by Plant doctors.

Clinics and rallies help farmers to access the information they need when they need it and it further helps them reduce crop losses thereby improving crop health and their livelihoods.

Improving food security is not a myth – using the right agricultural extension approaches surely, we can loose less and feed more!

1 Comment

  1. Isaiah on 12th August 2015 at 9:16 AM

    surely this is in the right direction and together we can achieve alot

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