Agritech Agriculture Expo Zambia 2015
The Agritech Agriculture Expo Zambia storms into the 2015 calendar this week and we’re proud to announce that the Best of Zambia team will be there! Find our stand in the SME Zone. We’re also super excited to see some of our clients attending the show — see the list on the right under, ‘find out more’.
What is the Agritech Agriculture Expo?
This agriculture expo is a free-to-attend exhibition (yes, free)! It brings together the world’s leading solution providers in the agricultural sector such as farming technology experts, farming machinery and equipment providers, livestock equipment companies and financial institutions. The Agritech Agriculture expo was created to be a business-to-business platform for agricultural professionals, from small scale farmers through to commercial enterprises. The expo aims to help professionals in the agriculture sector to engage and conduct business with some of the world’s leading agricultural industry suppliers. From live crop trials and machinery demonstrations, to technical and practical workshops for emerging farmers and VIP business lounges for commercial players, it is simply the only business event servicing the needs of the entire agriculture value chain in Zambia and its neighbouring countries.
In 2014, the Agritech Expo delivered just short of 7,500 agricultural professionals and 65 exhibiting companies from across the globe. For 2015 these figures are set to rise to exceed 10,000+ visitors and 130 exhibiting companies! This further cements the position of Agritech Expo as the must attend agriculture event in the region. New sections for the 2015 expo include the VIP business area, livestock zone, sprayer area and SME zone.
We can tell that the Agritech Expo has been professionally organised and marketed. Simple things like the exhibitor list and workshop details provide useful information. We can see the investment and effort that has gone in to this and hats off to the Zambia National Farmers Union for taking this lead (we hope other sectors can learn and build on what you have done so far)!
2015 Agritech Agriculture Expo
This year’s Agritech Agriculture Expo is from the 16th to the 18th of April. The 16th will focus on commercial and emerging farmers and the 17th and 18th will be open to all agriculture and business professionals. There will be question and answer exhibitors workshops on 17th and 18th which comprise of four sessions:
- Crop management and productivity,
- Business and finance,
- Processing and best practices,
- Sustainability.
Get full details including times and speaker information here.
The expo also features the USAID agricultural development presentations and discussions on the 16th and 17th of April. Topics include
- Harm mechanisation,
- Irrigation,
- Business,
- Commodity marketing,
- Livestock — goats, sheep and beef,
- Livestock — dairy and pigs,
- Livestock — poultry,
- Crop management and legume production.
Get full details including times and speaker information here.
Agriculture in Zambia
Zambia’s seasons fall broadly into three periods and agriculture is very reliant on the seasonal rains, particularly for subsistence farmers which remains a large portion of Zambia’s farming population. The rain is significant for the country because of the large tracts of land become well-watered making it suitable for different kinds of cultivation and animal husbandry. The soils in Zambia are said to be generally poor, though the favourable climate allows for a range of crops including:
- Maize,
- Tobacco,
- Groundnuts,
- Cassava,
- Sweet potatoes,
- Fruit,
- Sugar cane,
- Cotton
Efforts are being made to increase yields and reduce subsistent dependency on the rains. Techniques such as crop rotation and inter-cropping (where two different crops share the same land) are being introduced. These changes will help to increase and improving the fertility of the soil. Some soil improving crops that are currently being promoted include velvet beans and hemp.
See you at the Agritech Agriculture Expo!
We expect that the 2015 Agritech Expo will help to equip visitors with the latest techniques and products to improve the agriculture sector in Zambia. We look forward to seeing you there! Look out for our team in Best of Zambia branded t-shirts and come and say hello — we may even take a picture and tweet it! On a more serious note, our team will be on hand to tell you about the latest developments at the Best of Zambia (like this shiny new website relaunched in March 2015) and how your agriculture business could join 36 other suppliers in our growing ‘food and agriculture in Zambia’ directory.