A growing number of unemployed youth in Zambia are starting to embrace agriculture, the cornerstone of the economy. Those who are farming say greater government support and increased mechanization, could unlock job opportunities for more youth.
00:00Pingiwa Musende trained as a nurse, but delays in securing a job placement
00:05led her to explore farming, a field traditionally dominated by men in Zambia.
00:12What began as her small vegetable garden is now a thriving farm.
00:17I bought a hosepipe. I remember some sprinklers and some seeds.
00:23And we planted about maybe just a small field of maybe 50 by 50.
00:30And at first it did well and women would come on the farmers.
00:33They check on the chickens. They would come to the field and order some vegetables.
00:37And I grew interest in horticulture from there.
00:40The challenge we're facing right now is water.
00:43Water, as you can see here where we are farming, it's quite a big space.
00:48But we are only able to irrigate a certain portion because we do not have enough water
00:54hielding from the boho that we have currently.
00:58Musende's husband, Simon Walia, co-founded the farm and works alongside her.
01:04He says supporting her dream has transformed their lives.
01:09As time went by, the communication between the two of us and the love that we had for each other,
01:19we started doing pretty well.
01:22We started doing pretty well and we've been doing amazing together.
01:25Andrew Majila, who farms near Lusaka, left his job as a store manager and supervisor at an export company.
01:35He felt that his salary didn't match his efforts and went into farming full time.
01:41Initially, I started with keeping broiler chickens, of which I managed and I was successive with that.
01:48And after managing that, I was able to build more pot trees.
01:52And that's how now I also decided, so okay, I can also start doing horticultural crops.
01:57At first, there was nothing, literally nothing here at the farm.
02:00But as you can see, I have, there's a house there, there are some pot trees and there's also some development that are going on here at the garden.
02:08So at least I've managed also to settle my debts that I had through farming.
02:14And I'm proud to say I'm on the right track.
02:18The youth has had little incentive to enter the agricultural sector, where over 60% of farmers operate on a small scale with limited access to markets and technology.
02:31But Musende and Machila are helping to change the narrative, using irrigation systems and social media to expand their reach and create jobs.
02:45As you can see, we are now harvesting beetroot at SP Farms.
02:50My specialty is farming.
02:52And when I started work here, I advised my boss to buy all the necessary equipment for successful farming.
02:59And now, I am very happy working here, because the farm has yielded results, and we work as a team.
03:12Farming is very good and keeps me going when we harvest the crops and sell the produce.
03:17If we don't farm, then there is no food for people.
03:21Farming is very good and keeps me going when we harvest the crops, and I hope to see the government invest more in mechanization to empower more youth through agriculture.
03:34For more information, let's go after I pick up kalo давай.
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