Zambia needs to urgently rethink its growth model. It does not make sense to have an urban growth model built on building countless shopping malls stuffed with foreign products.
In one shopping supermarket we looked at this week, this is one of a handful products made in Zambia. The rest are imported from around the globe.
The situation is so bad that even mere onions are now imported from South Africa.
We would encourage government to consider increasing import taxes on such products and offer substantial rebates to domestic producers of similar products in order to change relative prices.
This is the face of corporatisation not only in Zambia, in South Africa as well.
ReplyDeleteThis is Wildeklawer, now the biggest onion producer in South Africa - meaning that even other well funded commercial farms can't compete.
What is needed, is getting out of the WB/IMF system of 'free trade', and stimulating and protecting local producers. There is a need for organic agriculture, not more chemical based commercial agriculture that destroys the soil and drops water tables.