Agriculture Minister Dora Siliya says she is against the importation of vegetables from other countries.

She says Zambia should take advantage of the abundant waterfalls to grow vegetables all year round.

Meanwhile, Ms Siliya says Zambia has seen massive  developments in  much in recent years, therefore there is need for Zambians to start talking positive things about the country to sell Zambia’s agriculture to the outside world.

Ms Siliya emphasized the need for Zambian farmers to grow vegetables throughout  the year for consumption and commercial purposes.

She said this can be made possible through irrigation mean, taking a leaf from Israel which has benefited from the practice.

“It is high time our farmers moved a mile further and started  growing vegetables throughout the year because we eat vegetables for  365 days.  In this way we are going to discouraging  importation of vegetables from other countries,” Siliya said.

And the Minister said Zambia has attained a lot of  developments in  last  years, saying there is need for Zambians to start selling the positive image to the outside world.

She said Zambia should encourage tourists to come in in the country  to sample the tourism destinations and the  agricultural products the country has to offer.

“When I travel to Dubai or South Africa and back here, I say that, hey the country has developed so much. When I see a shopping mall been built, I see someone getting a job, be it formal or casual. I see a person selling tomatoes at that shopping mall. We need to start selling the positive image to the outside world so that we can have many tourist coming and buying our agricultural products,” Siliya said.

She explained that the country has survived global economic recessions, with the the worst one being the 2009 economic meltdown.

“Just when we were recovering from that 2009 global recession, the copper prices slumped on international market,” Siliya said,” while we need to maintain mining as our main engine the economy, we need to diversify our economy into other viable means.”

She was speaking the on Diamond TV’s Interview with Costa programme.

Source: Kwacha Celebrity Newspaper