TRADITIONAL LEADER ENDORSES USE OF TRADITIONAL MAIZE SEED

 

PARAMOUNT CHIEF MPEZENI ENDORSES  USE OF TRADITIONAL MAIZE SEED
....if we can revert to using traditional seed, our seed,the better,says the traditional leader.
Chief Mpezeni

By Alfonso Kasongo
Amidst increased use of hybrid maize seed varieties by the rural communities across the country, Paramount Chief Mpezeni of the Ngoni people of Eastern province of Zambia has emphasised the need to protect local maize seed if the country is to avert hunger.

Despite high yields,hybrid seeds tend to lose their hybrid vigor and may not manifest the same positive characteristics as the original hybrid plants when saved and replanted.

The traditional leader insists that traditional maize seed is better than the hybrid and remains crucial for food security.

Chief Mpezeni's advice comes at a time when the country is undergoing amendments to seed related pieces of legislation and poposals for it to join the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), the situation environmental defenders and agroecology advocates consider will provides a conducive environment to further consolidate control of Zambian seed and agriculture for foreign profit.

Chief Mpezeni therefore, indicates that it will be important for small-holder farmers to revert and maintain the use of traditional maize seed among other important local seeds.

"Lomba ngati ti za welela kuli ilambeu yatu yakale, Ila mbeu yasu yakale kale... Kuti tiwelelepo, apo chingakale chiweme ngako,kuti nase ti nga support ngako pa nkhani yameneyo...it will be good if we can get back to using traditional maize seeds,our seed.We can support this development,"Chief Mpezeni stresses.

Speaking on national broadcast, the Zambia National Broadcast Corporation (ZNBC) Television during a documentary for Zambezi Seed Company, Chief Mpezeni stresses the importance of local seed,saying the local variety which is open pollinated is cheap as it can be replanted comparing to the hybrid seeds.

The Paramount  chief further emphasises that local seed is easy to share with community members as it does not involve any cost adding that the country has been food secure for decades because small-holder farmers used to share the local seed..
" pakuti ndiye mbeu yasu takula nayo,osati iya ya hybrid yatyani tyani...ivi vakuti ukalima, ukagulisa kuti ukabyale mailo vukanga basi."

" Muona kale kale tenze ku sepelana mbeu,chifukwa munga shote mbeu, muwele kwangu mpasenkoni mbeu.. Not iyi yasu ya hybrid sunga ishange lini.ukashanga sunga ishange chaka chikuza...... When you look at the years back,we used to share the seed ,unlike the hybrid which once you plant ,it can be replanted in the following season,"the traditional leader explains.

Zambia has in the last two decades recorded an increase of transnational seed corporates which have since flooded the Zambian seed market with hybrid seeds.

This development has triggered some concerns among stakeholders including the Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biosafety (ZAAB), Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT), Pelum Zambia and faith based organisations such as Caritas Zambia among others.

They argue that the continued dependence on the hybrid seeds has led the country's seed sector to be manipulated and controlled by these multinational seed companies, the situation they described as a threat to country's food sovereignty, household nutrition and climate change resilient among other concerns.

They have since attributed the increase in hybrid seed use to a poverty alleviating policy, the farmer Input Support Programme (FISP).

Poverty alleviation has been one of the goals of the current Farmer Input Support Program (FISP) through the provision of grain (maize) and fertilizer subsidies to smallholder farmers.

This development has seen most smallholder farmers being inclined to maize crop farming hence compromising crop diversification.

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