In thewake of changing weather pattern, the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) has partnered with African Grey Insurance to provide crop insurance services to farmers in Petauke and Nyimba for the 2014/15 farming season.

The partnership between ZNFU and African Grey Insurance follows the poor rainfall pattern experienced in the 2014/15 farming season.

According to the ZNFU Friday brief , African Grey Insurance will conduct crop assessments to ascertain the extent of crop damage among farmers under the Lima Credit Scheme (LCS) in the districts.

“African Grey Insurance will offer crop insurance services to farmers in both Petauke and Nyimba in the 2014/15 season to farmers under LCS,” the statement reads.

ZNFU says a team from African Grey Insurance will start conducting crop assessment this week to ascertain the extent of crop damage.

In Mbala, the District Farmers’ Association chairperson Peter Witola called on farmers to safeguard this year’s produce to avoid hunger and starvation at household level.

Mr Witola said the rainfall pattern in the 2014/15 season was not favourable enough to support various crops, hence the need to safeguard produce that will be harvested.

Meanwhile, ZNFU has been urged to include trees on the LCS packages to help promote smallholder forest and farm producers.

Southern Province forestry officer Victor Chiiba said the idea to include trees on the scheme emanates from the department’s good collaboration with ZNFU at district level.

Making a submission to the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) mission on a field scoping tour of Choma and Mwinilunga last week, Mr Chiiba said Choma and Mwinilunga are pilot districts for the implementation of the Food Agricultural Organisations’programme through a partnership arrangement with ZNFU and the Forestry Department.

The FFF programme seeks to build capacity of smallholder forest and farm producers in organisation, business management and policy advocacy of forest production.

Source - www.daily-mail.co.zm