By Miyanda Katiwa
Lessons from one of Zambia's top tomatoe farmers, we supply John Banda (not real names) with tomato seedlings.
He pushes over 1000 boxes per harvest and goes to market every single day with
fields of not less that 15,000 plants per field.
Mr Banda has several fields. This field has 30,000 plants.
He said to me, 'the problem is Zambians love to do speculative farming, that is farming only when the price is high. When price is low they get depressed and stop. What they don't understand is (1) farming has high and low price seasons. (2) If you want to succeed in farming, grow all year round, the low months will always be covered by the high months and (3) in addition you get better experience when you learn through the good and bad months'.
After grade 12, Mr Banda told his parents books were not his arena but his passion for tomato production. He has been at it since then. Image credit: Miyanda Katiwa
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About the Author:
Miyanda Katiwa is a Farmer. She owns Pamushana Farm, Zambia's leading producer of a comprehensive range of
vegetable seedlings.
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