Macha benefits from e-agriculture

The arrival of Internet in Zambia's rural Macha community has provided ready access to comprehensive, up-to-date and detailed information on agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry and food.

ICT has, for example, helped Fred Mweetwa -- board secretary of Macha's ISP (Internet service provider), LinkNet Zambia -- find relevant information on the growing conditions and processing of sunflowers. After growing a successful crop of sunflowers in 2006, Mweetwa has now become a consultant on the subject and has led other farmers to begin planting sunflowers for oil production. Mweetwa harvested 400 liters of oil from last year's crop and plans to increase his yield this coming season.

Previously, Mweetwa's family only grew maize, which is more costly to grow and requires more fertilizer than sunflowers, borrowing oxen from neighbor's to plow the fields, said Ruth Muchimba, Mweetwa's mother, who processes the sunflower oil and manages the business. The sunflower harvest has greatly improved the family's quality of life, she said, with oil sales allowing them to purchase their own animals for plowing. The family now makes twice as much money as it used to.

"We want to double the production of sunflower this year and also improve the refining stage by getting new equipment, as at the moment, the Yenga press that we use is not ours," Muchimba said.

Since they began pressing sunflowers for cooking oil, Muchimba's household has never run out of oil, a rare commodity in the area, she added. The family now trades oil for maize.

Meanwhile, Macha's Chief Chikanta observed that computers will be very useful in marketing agricultural products, giving farmers access to the correct market prices of their produce. It is important for Chikanta's subjects to know the true price of maize at the Food Reserve Agency, he explained, as unscrupulous dealers have often made farmers sell their produce at costs well below its worth.

By allowing farmers to inform potential buyers of how many tons of maize the area will produce, ICT can also reduce the cost of transporting food to the markets by 30 percent to 40 percent, Chikanta noted.

It is a sad situation, he added, when people cannot even determine the price of fertilizer or where to source equipment due to a lack of ICT. Technology in rural areas is sure to improve production, he said.