BUUMBA CHIMBULU writes
REVAMPING the culture of young farmers clubs and stewardship will encourage youths to have interest in farming, the Zambia National Farmers’ Union (ZNFU) has said.
ZNFU president Jervis Zimba observed that revamping these clubs would help Zambia embrace the youth in farming at an early age.
Mr Zimba was speaking during the National Field Day in Mansa on last week.
“We should embrace them at an early age so that they develop the interest and learn the skills to easily carry the country’s load in future,” Mr Zimba said.
Statistics, Mr Zimba said, indicated that Zambia had a youthful population.
He said the number of people between the ages of 15 and 35 years was placed at about 4.8 million and this, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), was the largest population of young people in the history of the country.
Mr Zimba said as a country, it was an asset that it had a youthful population as this was the group any nation needed to foster development and presented an enormous opportunity to transform the country’s future.
“As the country makes advancements in agricultural growth, there is need to ensure that the youth become major players in agricultural activities; but they need incentives to enable them to participate in the agriculture sector,” he said.
