The National Union for Small Scale Farmers in Zambia-NUSFAZ has appealed to government to increase the price at which the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) will be buying maize in the 2022 crop-marketing season.
Union Executive Director Ebony Loloji said the production costs for farmers have increased due to the increase in fertiliser and fuel prices among other inputs adding that some farmers use fuel to operate different types of machinery.
Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Loloji said government should consider the work that farmers put into the production of maize as well as the increasing production costs as it sets the maize floor price for the coming crop-marketing season.
“The increment in fuel affects transportation costs of inputs to the farm and also output to the market so all those factors have to be put into consideration. When determining the floor price of maize it is important to take all those factors into consideration so that we are able to protect the small scale farmers who are feeding the nation”, he said.
“Due to continued increase in input prices or factors of production of maize, our expectation as a representative of small scale farmers is that there should be an increment from K150 per 50kg offered in the last season”, he said.
Loloji noted that if the floor price is maintained at K150, private market players would take advantage of small scale farmers knowing that they will not go anywhere else but to them therefore it is important to offer a competitive price and avoid exposing small scale farmers to exploitation.
He however mentioned that factors of supply and demand do affect the pricing therefore the maize being held in the food reserve should not be released to the millers anyhow when there is maize available on the market from the farmers whom millers and other market players can buy from.
“Provided that you know that the maize is going to be held in the strategic food reserves and leave what will be harvested to be bought by private buyers, I don’t think the forces of demand will have a lot of impact on the price for this coming marketing season”, he said.
