The Grain Traders Association of Zambia – GTAZ has disclosed that government has insisted on NOT issuing farmers with export permits which will allow them to export some of their maize even when they have worked hard and achieved a bumper harvest.
GTAZ President Chambila Simwinga said the association has on various occasions engaged government to allow their members to export maize but has not received a positive response.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, Simwinga said government should allow farmers to export a reasonable quantity of maize (agree a quota system) and see what impact that would have on the country’s food reserve and market prices before ruling out the option.
“We have been lobbying with the government to say let us do the quarter system where we export say 50,000 tonnes of maize or mealie meal and then do an impact analysis and see whether we have depleted our stock or still have enough maize and decide whether to export again or not, he said.”
Simwinga added that government is still using the old sampling system and has overestimated the crop focus survey. “The current sampling number is 13,400 households out of the population of over 17 million, you cannot sample 13,400 households and arrive at the quantities of 3.4 metric tonnes to be harvested, it is not possible, their is need to look at the sample size, he said.”
He also notes that as an association, they have NOT been able to meet their target of buying 500,000 metric tonnes of maize. Simwinga said the government should consider the issuance of export permits as this will bring in the much needed forex and have an impact on the exchange rates.
Zambia has the potential to expand its maize production and make this an all year crop as the demand within the region continues to expand in line with population growth. Maize prices on the export market are also rising which makes maize cropping a potential high employment and high income earner for the country.
But the Ministry of Agriculture and its Agency, the Food Reserve Agency – FRA had been directed to buy up 1 million tons from the current farming season. FRA says they can buy the requisite stocks but the challenge has been on funding from the treasury (Ministry of Finance) which has not matched the targeted stock levels.
If there was competent implementation by both Ministries of Agriculture and Finance, the country by now should have bought the 1 million tones out of the estimated 3.4 million tons and started the exporting of the reported excess to gain forex which can support the local currency, the Kwacha which has depreciated by over 60% in 2020 alone.
