Lusaka Mayor Her Worship, Ms. Chilando Chitangala says Lusaka City needs to establish a resilient, dynamic and sustainable food systems to respond to the high demand for food in the city caused by an increase in population.
Ms. Chitangala said there are numerous opportunities that Lusaka can leverage to transform the city’s food systems and address many challenges that the city is facing in ensuring sufficient food supply to residents.
She stressed that strong collaborations and coordination among stakeholders, sustainable urban agriculture practices, development of robust policies and community empowerment in food systems knowledge and skills is needed to ensure sustainable food supply to the city.
The Mayor said this when she officiated at The Lusaka City Region Food System Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue held at Sandy’s Creation in Lusaka today.
She said with over 3.5million residents, Lusaka relies heavily on food imports from other towns, a situation that she feels is not sustainable and solutions must be found to recover the city from this dependency.
“This dependency means that our residents will continue to rely on external sources for their survival. This situation is not sustarable and it is imperative that we work together to change it” said the Mayor.
She is concerned that many vegetables and fruits that are supposed to be consumed by residents sometimes go to waste due to inadequate and lack of storage in markets, hence the need to build infrastructure that supports sustainable food security in the city.
Speaking at the same event during a panel discussion dubbed ‘Building Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable Food Systems’ the Mayor of Chongwe His Worship, Mr. Christopher Habeenzu expressed worry that agriculture production space in Chongwe is becoming limited because residents have opted to tum agriculture land into mixed use spaces, hence reducing production and supply of food to the district and the neighboyung districts such as Lusaka.
Meanwhile, Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute-IAPRI Executive Director Mr. Chance Kabaghe who was represented by IAPRI Researcher, Mr. Coillard Hamusimbi said there is need for the city to invest in technologies that can help in the enhancement of food production, productivity, processing and good preservation.
The Lusaka City Region Food System Multi-Stakeholders Dialogue was organised by Hivos and other collaborating partners.
Present at the event was also Mayor of Mansa, His Worship Mir. Nikhe Musuku, Councilors from Lusaka and Chongwe, representatives from FAO, ICLEI and other stakeholders.
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