Newly elected World Farmers’ Organization President Evelyn Nguleka (Francesco Ragni photo)

MILAN — The World Farmers’ Organization, a coalition of farm groups including the National Farmers Union of the United States, last week elected Evelyn Nguleka, a Zambian veterinarian, as its president while meeting on the sidelines of the Expo Milano, a universal exhibition devoted to the question of how to how to feed a world population of 9 billion people in the year 2050.

“One thing we believe in is we must be united,” Nguleka told the general assembly. “We get that unity through communication. Without that we will not know what we think of each other.”

There are often disputes between developed and developing countries on agricultural policies and between commercial-scale farmers and smallholders, but Nguleka said, “We don’t want northern farmers to have losses.”

But of smallholder farmers, she added, “We are not hobbyists, we are agripreneurs.”

Nguleka also noted that the role of women in farming in developing countries has only recently been recognized.

“As a woman and as small farmer, I am not only a food producer, but also a real economic actor of a sector that is not different from any other economic sector,” Nguleka said.

“For too long the role of the farmer was taken for granted, almost as we were vending machines for food, called to respond to that role, who carry out with joy the task of feeding the planet in a compulsory and annihilating way, without margins of profits.”

Nguleka was born in Zambia in 1970 and holds a degree in veterinary medicine from the University of Lusaka and a diploma in international poultry breeding from the IPC Barneveld College Practical Training Center in the Netherlands.

In addition to her veterinary practice, Nguleka raises poultry and goats on a small scale and engages in other farming activities.

She is president of the Zambia National Farmers Union and previously served as its vice president in charge of commodities.