Minister tips north farmers on drought-resistant crops
By Staff Reporter
Northern Province minister Bwalya Chungu has implored farmers in the region to grow a variety of drought-resistant crops to mitigate the negative effects of climate change.
Chungu, at a media briefing in Kasama, indicated that time had come for farmers in the province, both commercial and subsistence, to embrace the culture of cultivating crops that could survive when there was low rainfall pattern.
The minister noted that climate change was real and that farmers in Northern Province should adapt to other ways of farming by ensuring that they planted drought-resistant crops because: “the weather patterns are unexpected due to climate change.”
Chungu noted that the issue of climate change should not be politicised because: “no one can control the will of nature.”
He expressed sadness that some politicians were in the habit of politicising the impact of climate change for them to gain ‘cheap’ political mileage.
Chungu said farmers played a critical role to the food basket of the Province therefore they should make sure that their farming activities were not disrupted by the unforeseen weather patterns that are experienced in the wake of the climate change.
The minister has also appealed to the media in Northern Province to take a leading role in covering issues of climate change for the people to know what was happening in their environment.
