The Small Scale Farmers Development Agency-SAFADA says lifting the ban on the exportation of raw soya beans is an economic draw back, which will delay the development of value addition in the agriculture sector.
SAFADA Executive Director Boyd Moobwe said government should instead facilitate industrialization so that whatever is produced in the country can be processed and exported as high value finished products.
Moobwe said the kwacha has continued to depreciate and lose value against the dollar because the country is not into production adding that if farmers are assisted, Zambia can be a food basket for the whole Africa.
Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Moobwe said soya beans can be processed into soya chunks, cooking oil and livestock feed which can be exported at day double the value or more and Zambia should be in a position to produce and process so that it can export finished products.
He said there is need to produce and export finished products in order to revamp the economy and gain extra foreign exchange but that is not happening because the production level remains low due to low export earnings from export of raw or unprocessed products.
He added that being unable to increase production will result in Zambia being a dumping ground for goods from outside as the country is not able to maintain its food security. Moreover, you find that export permits are now being given even for products that are in deficit in the country.
“Some of the products that are on the Zambian market are finished products from different countries, why can’t we do the same, I know we are exporting some products but the quantity is not at an optimum level”, he said.
He said economists, agriculturalists and other technocrats should advise government on what should be done so that the economy can improve and put in place proper measures that can boost agriculture in terms of production and exports.
“Technocrats should look into this issue, otherwise we will be complaining all the time that our economy is bad and yet we are misfiring somehow. There’s peace in the country and we are able to venture into different economic activities, we don’t run around because of war and so on but there is nothing much which is put in place to help the farmers with value addition”, he said.
He said lifting the ban on the exportation of raw and unprocessed soya beans will benefit the farmers as they will be offered a better price but this will negatively affect the economy in terms of production and value addition in the long run.
