The Small Scale Farmers Development Agency – SAFADA has disclosed that it is confident that the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) will be realistic and increase the maize floor price for the 2021/2022 crop-marketing season to take into account the increased cost of production.
However, the increase in the FRA maize price is feared as it is expected to trigger a domino increase in the price of mealie meal – Zambia’s staple food, a well known and highly charged political issue. But the situation on the ground leaves limited wiggle room for FRA as input costs have increased, some having doubled within the year.
SAFADA Executive Director Boyd Moobwe said SAFADA does not expect FRA to maintain the K150 that it was buying a 50kg bag of maize in the 2020/2021 crop-marketing season as the cost of production for farmers went up last year due to the increase in prices of fertilizer, seed and other inputs.
Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, Moobwe said FRA should raise the buying price for a 50kg bag of maize from the previous K150 to atleast K200 so that farmers can cover their cost of production as well as realize some minimal profit.
Moobwe noted that if the farmers take into consideration everything that is involved in the production of maize besides the inputs, K250 would be a reasonable price for the purchase of a 50kg bag of maize this year.
Analysts say the ministry of Agro also has to be cognizant that farmers will need to use these sales proceeds to buy fertilizers, seeds, chemicals and other inputs whose prices have increased to be able to make their Agro businesses sustainable.
“Our expectations are quite high, we have confidence that FRA will give us a good price, we don’t expect FRA to maintain the K150 per 50kg bag which will be a mockery to farmers, so if they can raise it up to K200 and above, it will be much better”, he said.
He explained that the farmers were buying a bag of fertilizer between K600 and K700 therefore the need for government to raise the buying price to K250, which may not even be enough when the farmers look at how much they spent on seeds, ploughing and weeding among other things.
Moobwe has appealed to government to support other alternative measures of crop fertilization and encourage farmers to use other products such as liquid fertiliser, which has been proven by Mount Makuru research and other organisations as well as farmers.
Government had in 2020 hinted on putting through regulatory mechanism to allow FRA or set up an independent body to act as a marketing agency that would directly buy and export maize so that some of the benefits can trickle down to farmers, but red tape continues to hamper progress.
