Zambian Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), Elias Mubanga said he was impressed by the wheat and avocado production in Ethiopia and urged African countries to come and visit the initiatives.
A total of 14 delegations comprising ministers and officials from Zambia, Niger, Tanzania and Cote d’Ivoire paid a visit to Ethiopia since last Sunday to look at the experiences of the Ethiopian agricultural development activities.
The visit is aimed at exchanging the best practices and experiences of Ethiopia in transforming agriculture, particularly wheat, avocado, and coffee developments in Ethiopia.
Zambian Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises Development and member of the delegation visiting the wheat and avocado in the Oromia region of Ethiopia, Elias Mubanga told ENA that he was impressed by the wheat and avocado development activities being carried out in the country.
He said he was impressed on how the unemployed youth who have just graduated from universities have come together to form up cooperatives and get into producing avocado.
“These have really impressed me and how they started creating jobs through this agricultural sector, particularly avocado production. I want to see if I can take it with me and duplicate it with the youth, especially the youth that just finished university,” according to the minister.
Most of the youth in Africa and globally when they finish university level, they want to be employed, he said, adding “this is a beautiful initiative by the Oromia region of Ethiopia.”
He emphasized that the young people came together to form up cooperative, form up companies and get into producing things like avocado and wheat production.
“We also looked at how farmers get into wheat production through irrigation and creating so much employment because that is my area of concentration of job creation through small and medium businesses,” Mubanga noted.
He applauded this success story of Ethiopia.
The Minister stressed that creating much job requires serious attention in all African countries, including my county Zambia.
“I think these initiatives [wheat and avocado production] are beautiful. If all African countries would have these initiatives, there would have no shortage of food in Africa. Africa should be a basket for food and then we will be able to export to Europe and other countries,” he added.
He urged African countries to come and visit the initiatives so that we can grow our food basket.
Source: Ethiopian News Agency