MANZINI – The Eswatini National Agriculture Union (ESNAU) today kicked off its conference in Manzini – a practical example of the Union’s belief in farmers sharing knowledge with each other.
The goal of the meeting is to establish a system for farmers to best communicate with government and other stakeholders in order to ensure an effective value chain overall.
Speaking during the conference, ESNAU CEO Lwazi Mamba remarked that, “As we interact with farmers, we then picked the highlights of what most farmers speak about and decide to engage those topics in this year’s policy conference. Usually, we have the conference in two days and then dedicate the 3rd day to the Annual General Meeting. However, this year we decided to host the conference in one day and we managed to prioritise so that we achieve everything that we need.”
“We decided to zoom in on the farmers, which is why a majority of us are farmers here today. So, we are trying to say that we’re addressing the issues of the sector as a whole, and how we can help farmers not be in a destitute state,” added the CEO.
“Another issue is that of advocacy. We’re usually happy that the captains of industry be here and the policy makers be here,” remarked Mamba.
There are at least three scribes who take notes and minutes during the conference to ensure a proper follow-up on all the issues raised by farmers.
