Mealie meal price hike may not be avoided as the Food Reserve Agency – FRA has only received less than half (K1 billion out of the required K2.2 billion) of the funding needed to buy and meet the set national target of storing upto 1 million tons of Maize. Maize is Zambia’s staple food and its market price is highly sensitive.
FRA may struggle to buy and meet the target set of 1 million tones for strategic national food reserves despite the fact that Zambia reported a bumper harvest of over 3.4 million tones of Maize production in the 2019/2020 Agro season.
FRA this year risks failure to meet the maize national reserve buying target as the market is awash with traders and millers buying maize at cash on delivery terms, leading to most farmers opting not to sell to FRA who are known to delay in settling payments.
So far, the agency disclosed that it had only managed to purchase a total of about 58,000 tons (1,160,507 by 50Kg bags) of white maize as of July 23th, 2020, from all the 10 provinces across the country, from a maize target of 1 million tons announced by government.
FRA Public Relations Coordinator John Chipandwe disclosed to the Zambian Business Times – ZBT in an exclusive interview that the Agency began purchasing crops in the last two weeks and that produce being purchased also include Paddy Rice, Soya Beans and White Maize for national strategic food reserves.
He said FRA has since managed to purchase the indicated quantities and remains optimistic that it will be able to procure the one million metric tons of white maize for national strategic food reserves that it was directed to buy by the Republican President.
Government recently released an initial amount of K1 billion to FRA for crop purchase and efforts to find out how much of this K1 billion has been paid out so far proved futile as the Agency could not confirm the exact amount by press time.
Meanwhile, Chipandwe said the Agency has been funded early for this year’s marketing season unlike in the previous years, hence farmers that supply their crops to the Agency this marketing season are being paid upon delivery of their crops and processing of their documents.
“We are optimistic that these measures and more will enable us to procure one million metric tonnes before the close of the marketing season. We are also receiving positive feedback from farmers since they are being paid upon delivery once they deliver their crops and this is why within a short space of time, we have managed to record the quantities as indicated above,” He added.
Agro analysts have however cautioned FRA to put in place proper storage measures especially that the target was increased from 500,000 tons the previous year to 1 million tones of maize in the current maize buying season.
No or Zero wastage of maize should be allowed this time around as history is replete with situations were storage shades are not adequate leading to pests or rain destroying the crop. FRA should ensure that non of that repeats itself.
