M’mbelwa District Council Agriculture Service Committee chairperson Dan Nkosi has urged farmers in Mzimba to plant trees that fix nutrients in the soil.
He said this on Friday at Chapitamuno Village in Traditional Authority (T/A) M’mbelwa when the district’s agriculture office launched an agroforestry initiative themed ‘Enhancing climate resilience through agroforestry’.
Nkosi said many farmers fail to harvest bumper yields because they are growing crops on degraded land.
“So we urge farmers to adopt good farming practices and plant tree species that enrich the soil with nutrients,” he said.
Nkosi encouraged farmers to have village forests or woodlots and take care of indigenous trees in communities through natural regeneration.
“Farmers should also make organic manure instead of relying on chemical fertiliser,’ he said.
On her part, Mzimba South Agriculture Office senior land resources conservation officer Olive Nyalila said farmers will plant 70 000 trees in their catchment areas under the initiative.
She said they observed that crop yield was dwindling because of loss of soil fertility.
“We challenge farmers to own the agroforestry initiative because we want them to champion good farming practices that can boost crop yields amid climate change shocks,” said Nyalila.
Samuel Tembo, a farmer from Chapitamuno Village commended the initiative saying it will empower farmers to plant trees.
“If we restore soil fertility, we will cut the cost of buying fertiliser,” he said.
