“The young trailblazer is a trained professional medical Doctor who in 2015, hung up her lab coat and left the hospital for a work suit, boots and lots of hours in the sun.
Dr Tamara identifies herself as a person who is pro-zero poverty and mentions on how working in the medical field helped her see that poverty is preventable, ensuring that there is food security. This was her biggest drive to go into agriculture; as she recognized the many benefits that it presents and saw it as a call for young minds with diverse ideas to pitch into the industry.
Currently, the young mother runs a company with her husband called Billionaire Agro Seedlings, based in Lusaka, which produces assorted vegetable seedlings for sale. The inclusion of ‘Billionaire’ in the business name comes from the idea that her business is a billion-dollar project and there are billion ideas out there.
She highlights that she feels that some of the biggest setbacks for the youth when it comes to agriculture are financial – funds and literacy, lack of policies and information pertaining the developing agriculture sectors and how at times, (agriculture) inputs can be costly. “It is important that these challenges are addressed sooner than later, if the country and continent is to develop to a point where there is not only enough food to feed us but also export”, she mentions.
She happily shares that regardless of the setbacks, she has seen an influx of young people (the youth and ex-youth) as well as people of the working class going into agriculture. She further calls on more youth to join the sector by stating “that you can still be a professional and do agriculture as a business.” Additionally Dr Tamara, believes that for the African continent to develop we need to make Agriculture the backbone of our economy.” – Afrostain FarmTech
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