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Agribusiness

Crushers and Edible Oil Refiners Association – CEDORA members who had earlier stated that imported refined cooking oil would still land at a higher price than their final cooking oil products have u-turned and requested government to grant them import permits for refined cooking oil.

This follows the recorded drop in cooking oil prices following the government issuing of an import quota to traders to bring in refined cooking oil to plug up the supply gap that had seen retail prices continue to increase out of the reach of most working class Zambians.

An impeccable source has disclosed to the Zambian Business Times – ZBT that government has rejected a request by local cooking oil manufacturers to start importing packed refined cooking oil, after the prices of cooking oil dropped.

The source said the Crushers and Edible Oil Refiners Association (CEDORA) has asked government to allow them to import packed refined cooking oil as opposed to the current scenario where they import crude palm oil which they then refine locally.

The source said it is surprising that CEDORA wants to start importing refined cooking oil, as they were not for the idea of allowing the importation of refined cooking oil saying that they could beat the price of imported cooking oil.

The source said it is not clear why the association wants to start importing refined cooking oil as government has suspended Value Added Tax (VAT) on the importation of crude palm oil which should assist with the cost of importing the oil.

When contacted for a comment, CEDORA Director Aubrey Chibumba said he could not comment on the matter. Chibumba in the past disclosed to ZBT that local oil processing has contributed to the increase in soya beans cultivation from less than 100,000 metric tonnes per year in 2014 to the current production of over 410,000 metric tonnes this year.

Chibumba had told ZBT that 360,000 metric tonnes of soya beans was produced in 2016 but the poor prices resulted in over 100,000 local farmers exiting the cultivation of soya beans and the national cultivation dropped to 240,000 tons per year after that price crush.

He mentioned that this year’s crop from local farmers is expected to exceed the crop from commercial farmers for the first time, which has been made possible because small-scale farmers have noticed that crushers are paying good prices for soya beans.

Chibumba said soya beans is currently trading between K9 and K12 per Kg compared to the last season when the price closed at K5/Kg adding that this is the momentum that is needed to sustain the good soya beans prices currently prevailing on the market.

He said the association has proposed solutions that must be implemented before the 2021/2022 cultivation season which include local farmers having access to the best prices and will work with the Grain Traders, ZNFU, aggregators and other stakeholders to ensure that local farmers are not paid below cost prices.

Other proposed solutions include structured exports of oil seeds and market access support among other factors.

Chibumba stated that the country has huge opportunities within the agricultural space such as the oil seed cultivation and processing, a sector, which has over 800,000 tons of installed soya bean crushing capacity.

He further revealed that there are two new crushing plants under construction, which are likely to be operational by the end of the year.

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Crushers and Edible Oil Refiners Association -

Tech

A Pharmaceutical expert and former President of the Pharmaceutical Association of Zambia Jerome Kanyika has disclosed that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are better suitable than the Johnson and Johnson vaccine that has been ordered for the Zambian public.

Kanyika revealed that government should have procured the Johnson and Johnson vaccine during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic as studies and empirical data have shown that the vaccine has responded well to the South African variant.

The Zambian Government announced that it has mobilized resources to procure 4.4 million doses of Johnson and Johnson vaccine which is expected in the country in September,2021. The ministry of health further announced that about 108,000 AstraZeneca covid vaccine doses are expected this July, 120,000 doses expected in August and 100,000 doses of Sinopharm also expected by July 2021.

Kanyika said the country is supposed to be discussing acquiring more Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for the Indian delta Covid virus that the country is currently experiencing as its effectiveness has been seen from the western world and from the third wave of the virus, it is clear that the Pfizer vaccine is working well.

He said the third wave being propagated by the Indian variant virus, which is called the delta variant virus, is responding well to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine, noting that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is to some extent working well.

He further said the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which is manufactured, by the Johnson and Johnson pharmaceutical company is being used by South Africa, which was hit by its own variant and has proved to perform well.

Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Kanyika who is also former Pharmaceutical Society of Zambia (PSZ) President said there is need to acquire vaccines that have been studied extensively like the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines where studies on their developments are coming out almost on a weekly basis unlike vaccines being condemned by developed countries.

He said the Johnson and Johnson vaccine has known risks of blood clotting with people reported dead adding that other countries have stopped using it. He however noted that Johnson and Johnson is more convenient as it only requires one dose instead of two but studies have not yet shown how effective it is and most countries have suspended its use.

“The second wave was about the South African variant virus which was responding well to the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and some patients are still testing positive for the SA variant virus, no wonder we need the Johnson and Johnson vaccine”, he said.

Kanyika has expressed concern over the pace at which government is handling the issues to do with vaccinations as most of the countries that have vaccinated most of their populations now have relaxed COVID restrictions.

“We have seen people watching football in their stadiums, we have seen their countries going back to their normal businesses but here we are taking our time for us to respond to this pandemic”, he said. He mentioned that all vaccines under Covax are subsidized, affordable and easy to procure, and that is what most developing countries are relying on.

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A Pharmaceutical expert and former President of

Markets

Founding Chief Executive Officer, Director & Managing Director of Investrust  Bank Plc Friday Ndhlovu has died.

Ndhlovu worked as CEO, director and managing director of Investrust Bank Plc from 1995 to 2015.

Prior to that, Ndhlovu worked as managing director of  Zambia National Commercial Bank Plc (ZANACO) in 1992.

At his death, Ndhlovu was the chairman of AFE limited board of directors.

Investrust Bank plc head corporate affairs and marketing Maria Kalima confirmed his death in an interview with Zambian Business Times-ZBT.

“It is true that Mr Friday Ndhlovu has died, he has been unwell. You know he is no longer with Investrust so you can more information from the family,” she said.

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Founding Chief Executive Officer, Director & Managing

Agribusiness

The Dairy Association of Zambia (DAZ) has revealed that over 545 million liters (about 550 million liters) of locally produced milk is wasted annually due to lack of a ready market and development of a refrigeration facilities network.

The Association has further called on the ministries of Livestock & Agriculture to put in place import quotas or find ways to effectively regulate the issuance of import permits for milk concentrates so that local Diary farmers market is developed.

Association Executive Manager Jeremiah Kasalo said most of the dairy milk produced locally is being traded informally as it does not reach the formal trading channels such as Zambeef’s Zam-milk, Lactalis’ Parmalat and Trade Kings Diary Gold among others.

Kasalo said milk is a perishable commodity, which requires special equipment to store, handle and market. It is this equipment in the form of chillers, which are inadequate in the country, and especially milk producing and collection centers.

Kasalo said the milk reaching formal trading channels or milk processors is [only 12%], that is only 75 million litres per annum out of the 620 million litres produced, as most of the milk is not collected due to an underdeveloped milk collection dealer network and in-installed milk collection Centre equipment.

However, when a market analysis is done, what is shocking is that the top processors have opted to import milk concentrates at the expense of developing an extensive local milk collection dealer network in Zambia. As a result, some processors are re-constituting milk which is being sold in place of locally produced fresh milk.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, Kasalo said government allowed re-constituted milk in the country in order to fill the gap and meet the demand [for processed milk].

He said an exercise duty of K1.50 per litre was introduced last year and whatever milk powder is imported in bulk for further processing is charged 15% import duty which is an increase from the 5% that was being charged in the past, and this is to help make investments into collection and processing of locally produced milk competitive.

He further said government working with the private sector should put up appropriate infrastructure such as milk collection centers, adding that the country currently has only 75 milk collection centers.

There is need of an additional 200 milk collection centers that each would need to have a storage capacity of 2500 litres per day to be able to mop up the milk which is locally available. Kasalo told ZBT.

He also said the association has continued to work with the privately owned milk processing companies to encourage them to establish milk collection centres and has continued to lobby government to continue regulating the issuance of import permits.

He said the association has also continued to lobby government to introduce export tax or duty on maize bran so that the bran can be as cheap as possible in the country thereby making the cost of production lower and encourage a lot of people to not only go into dairy but also fattening of beef cattle.

Kasalo noted that there are three major grades of milk marketed in the country namely grade A,B and C and most of the milk traded in the country is grade A and B and the grades are based on bacteria load in the milk.

He said grade A is any milk which has 0-50,000 Colony Forming Unit (CFU) which is the amount of bacteria in the milk allowable by health standards. He added that grade B has the amount of bacteria between 51,000-100,000 and C has bacteria between 101,000 – 200,000 and anything beyond 200,000 is not allowed by law to be sold or processed into products to sell to the public unless for one’s own home consumption.

Kasalo said mastitis, a disease that affects the udder of a cow which in turn makes the milk go sour also contributes to the wastage of milk as well as loadshedding or the disruption in the supply of electricity that affected milk storage under refrigeration.

Local milk processors have been accused of selling re-constituted milk as fresh milk thereby misleading consumers. DAZ has also expressed concern that the practice of marketing re-constituted milk as fresh milk is killing the local diary industry which relies on selling its produce as fresh milk. See more articles on Diary milk here Milk concentrates imports hurting local Diary industry

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The Dairy Association of Zambia (DAZ) has

Markets

Beef, fish, and chicken have continued to drive the prices of food upwards in June 2021 while non-food items remained relatively flat. Zambia’s Annual inflation for June, 2021 increased to 24.6 percent (about 25%) from 23.2 percent in May, 2021due to price increases in some food items.

This shows that on average, prices of goods and services increased by 24.6 percent between June 2020 and June 2021.

Zambia Statistics Agency interim statistician General Mulenga Musepa stated during the monthly bulleting presentation on Thursday 24 June 2021 attended by the Zambian Business Times – ZBT that annual food inflation for June, 2021 was recorded at 31.2 percent compared to 28.5 percent in May 2021, an increase of 2.7 percentage points.

Musepa said this was mainly attributed to increase in prices of food items such as Meats (Fillet steak, Rump steak, Brisket, Ox-liver, Offal’s, Goat meat, Chicken Frozen, Chicken Live); Fish (Fresh Kapenta, Dried Kapenta Mpulungu); and Coffee, Tea and Cocoa (Instant Coffee Prima, Instant Coffee, Tea bags, Cocoa.

Among the most essential foodstuffs, live chicken recorded the highest year on year inflation rate at 75.12% while T-bone and chicken frozen recorded second and third at 58.81 and 57.48% respectively.

Other meat products such as Brisket, rump steak, mixed cut, fillet steak, kidneys and goat meat year on year inflation was recorded between 23% to 55%.

On fish products, fresh Kapenta was recorded at 58.9 % while dried Kapenta Mpulungu year on year inflation was recorded at 21.32%. Meat prices generally have escalated across most types.

“The annual non-food inflation rate for June 2021 was recorded at 17.1 percent same as that recorded in May 2021.

“The Food and Non-alcoholic beverages group contributed 16.7 percentage points, while Nonfood items accounted for 7.9 percentage points to the overall inflation rate of 24.6 percent,” he said.

Mupesa said of the 7.9 percentage points, the Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels contributed the highest at 2.6 percentage points followed by Furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance and Transport groups that contributed 1.5 percentage points each.

He said the rest of the Non-Food groups accounted for the remaining 2.3 percentage points.

“The monthly inflation rate for June, 2021 was recorded at 1.3 percent, a decrease of 0.7 percentage points from 2.0 percent the previous month (see Figure 5).

“The slow-down in the monthly inflation rate was attributed to general price movements of both food and non-food items,” Mupesa said.

He said the monthly food inflation rate for June, 2021 was recorded at 1.5 percent, a decrease of 1.0 percentage points from 2.5 percent recorded in May, 2021 due  to the decrease in food inflation related items such as oils and Fats (cooking oil and Fruits (Oranges, lemons, watermelon); and groundnuts.

Mupesa said non-Food inflation rate for June, 2021 was recorded at 1.1 percent, indicating a decrease of 0.3 percentage points from the 1.4 percent recorded in May, 2021 mainly due to price movements of non-food items such as clothing materials, shoes and other footwear.

Meanwhile, an analysis on a monthly basis, of retail prices between May, 2021 and June, 2021 shows that the national average price of a 25 kg bag of Breakfast Mealie Meal decreased by 1.05 percent from K142.32 to K140.83 while the national average price of a 25 kg bag of Roller Mealie Meal decreased by 1.24 percent from K113.76 to K112.35.

The national average price of a 20-litre tin of Maize Grain decreased by 5.79 percent from K62.16 to K58.56

On an annual basis, the analysis of retail prices between June, 2020 and June, 2021 shows that the national average price of a 25kg bag of Breakfast Mealie Meal decreased by 1.10 percent from K142.39 to K140.83 while the national average price of a 25 kg bag of Roller Mealie Meal decreased by 1.78 percent from K114.39 to K112.35

The national average price of a 20-litre tin of Maize Grain increased by 9.48 percent from K53.49 to K58.56.

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Beef, fish, and chicken have continued to

Agribusiness

The escalating prices of day old chicks by over 100% within a period of one year has been sited among the key reasons leading to high cost of retail prices of live and dressed chickens in Zambia.

There has been public outcry following the increase in prices of day old chicks from a range of K5.50 to K6.50 last year 2020 to currently between K14.00 to K15.50 within a period of one year which has been blamed on limited supply and the Kwacha depreciation.

The limited supply is stemming from the country having very few commercial breeders which has resulted into local shortages. The export market demand has also been on the rise which has seen some breeders opting to export due to better prices.

Moreover, commercial breeders have specialised in imported layer and broiler chicken breeds whose prices are linked to the exchange rate as the parent stock, technical staff and breeder hatcheries have dollar denominated costs and components.

The Poultry Association of Zambia (PAZ) has revealed that the high capital requirement and lack of local financing solutions for setting up day old chicks breeder farms is the limiting factor which has prevented local farmers from venturing into the poultry breeding sector.

Poultry Association Executive Director Dominic Chanda said running a breeder farm also requires expertise and the cost of hiring experts to run breeder farms is expensive as it is more technical at a breeder farm level than it is at growing chickens.

Chanda said most of the experts running breeder farms come from outside the country as very few local people have the expertise or experience to run a breeder farm, which makes it expensive, adding that for instance, just to hire a Veterinary doctor to help run the farm is also costly.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, Chanda said the various costs associated with managing a breeder farm have made it difficult for local people to venture into the business on a small scale, as it requires huge capital investment. So, there is limited competition in this sector due to some entry barriers.

He said the grandparent stock breeders, which produce the male and female parent line have to be imported from Europe, which is a very complicated process especially if being done at small scale business level.

“You have what are called breeder farms, you have what is called the hatcheries, you have a breeder farm for grandparents, you have a breeder farm for parent stock, then from there you have the hatcheries, these are all costly to set up and operate”, he said.

Chanda said individuals or companies running breeder farms also have to adhere to the local regulations because environmental issues also come in when setting up a breeder farm, so there is need to do the environmental impact assessment, which can also be expensive.

He noted that there are also inspections conducted by the councils and other relevant authorities who conduct inspections every after two months. All these regulatory requirements have costs which have been a hindrance to local businesses setting up alternative breeders.

However, Some researchers spoken to by ZBT have instead challenged local poultry farmers to be innovative by coming up with novel ways to bread local (village) chickens to fill up the gap and meet the growing demand of chickens.

Do we surely have to import parent stock when we have village chickens which are also on high demand? Let’s also challenge our local Agro experts and poultry farmers to instead look at how they can fill up the gap by setting up breeders for our local village chickens?.

Moreover, even if the over 100% price increase is being blamed on the local currency – the Kwacha which depreciated by about 61% in the same period, when you consider the fact that day old chicks prices have gone up by over 100% within a year when the Kwacha depreciated by 61%, there is more to it than meets the eye.

Blaming these price increments on the Kwacha depreciation alone is questionable. More to follow on village chickens

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The escalating prices of day old chicks

Markets

The Bankers Association of Zambia (BAZ) has called on Zambians to embrace digital banking and payment platforms as the country goes through the third wave of Covid-19. BAZ has announced the donation of K755,000 towards oxygen provisions.

The Association members have agreed to reduced banking hours for financial service providers due to escalating Covid-19 cases in the country.

According to information made available to the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, BAZ has since committed to ensuring that self-service digital banking platforms services continue to operate efficiently on a 24-hour basis.

BAZ said all the channels will remain open during this period to ensure clients continue accessing essential financial services.

“In respect of this, it has become imperative to elevate health and safety measures so that our various touch points especially branches do not become a conduit of transmission for Covid-19.

“Our earnest appeal is that clients should transact from the safety of their homes through digital channels, online or mobile banking and only visit the branches when absolutely necessary. We also pledge continuity in the operations of all our ATMs and Cash deposit Machines,” BAZ stated.

The Bankers said in recognising the acute shortage of oxygen in the country, the Association has partnered with the Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Zambia (CIDRZ) to procure 1,800 oxygen cylinders valued at K755,000.

“The quantity as advised by the Ministry of Health will greatly help in reducing the acute shortage of oxygen in Lusaka Hospitals for at least three months,” he said.

And BAZ Chief Executive Officer Leonard Mwanza the association in consultation with the Bank of Zambia (BoZ) temporarily revised the operating hours for all Financial Service Providers until further notice.

Mwanza said this is because the association had noticed the increase in the number of COVID-19 cases of bank staff and their families.

“We would like to advise that BAZ in consultation with BoZ has temporarily revised the operating hours in view of the escalating Covid-19 cases. We have noted that the frontline staff in various branches across the country have not been spared from the pandemic, and a good number of them are reporting sick.

“In order to protect our frontline staff and public, we decided to revise the operating hours. The new operating hours are as follows, 08:15 to 14: hours during weekdays, while weekends will start at 08:30 to 11:00 hours instead of 12 hours. These are the minimum operating hours,” he said.

Mwanza said that banks however are at liberty to extend the operating hours to the normal ones depending on how they assessed the health situation on the ground.

He has since urged the general public to embrace self-digital banking platforms as they will be operating on a 24-hour basis.

“We would like to encourage the general public to take note that the digital platform will remain operational on a 24 hour service, the self- service platforms include mobile money, deposits, ATMs, Point of Sale machines, and online banking platforms.

“So we would like to urge the general public to avoid congesting branches and exposing themselves to possible infections and utilize these platforms temporal period, these will remain efficient,” Mwanza added.

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The Bankers Association of Zambia (BAZ) has

Agribusiness

With the super high prices of industrial processed cooking oil on the market, smaller and medium size cooking oil manufacturing plants are now in business with their retail prices saving consumers about 30 to 50%.

And one of the leading suppliers of small and medium size cooking oil crushing and processing plants Saro Agro has revealed that the demand for the cooking oil crushing plants has continued to increase.

Saro Agro Industrial Limited says the demand for oil mill machinery has continued to grow and has outweighed the supply. This follows the escalating cooking oil prices from large scale processors as well as in chain stores.

Cacius Nchimunya, a Sales and Service Engineer at Saro Agro said the market for the machines is overwhelming and has led to supply being lower than the demand now, with most of its customers being farmers who buy more quantities, government ministries and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Nchimunya said the company is working on increasing supply but the challenge is that due to COVID-19, suppliers are limiting the quantity that a company can get at a particular time which has made it difficult to increase supply.

He said the company has in stock one model of oil mill machines but in three sizes, which are 6YL-68 the smallest size, 6YL-80 and 6YL-100, the biggest size. He further said the oil mills can be either electric or diesel, with prices for the electric machines ranging from about K38,000 for the 6YL-68, K67,000 for the 6YL-80 and K81,000 for the 6YL-100.

He added that prices for the machines that use diesel range from about K48,000 for the 6YL-68, K69,000 for the 6YL-80 and K80,000 for the 6YL-100 noting that diesel machines are more expensive because diesel engines are more expensive than an electric motor.

He noted that both the electrical and diesel machines have a crushing capacity of atleast 85kg of feed per hour for the 6YL-68, atleast 150kg of feed per hour for the 6YL-80 and atleast 200kg of feed per hour for the 6YL-100.

He said capacity is not measured by the amount of oil produced due to different qualities of seed as different types of seed produce different quantities of oil as per 50kgs adding that a 50kg bag of seed with good quality can produce 20 litres of cooking oil.

Nchimunya mentioned that the company has a three months installment payment plan that allows customers to pay for the machines within three months and are only allowed to get the machines after the last installment payment.

“For three months, the price doesn’t change for a customer who is committed but when a customer goes beyond three months, by our standards when a customer exceeds three months, we have to consider him/her with a new price, of course at times due to customer service you may be considerate”, he said.

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With the super high prices of industrial

Agribusiness

Zambia’s massive fertilizer import bill can be cut if the country can adopt the use of the latest technology in plant nutrition by pivoting to wide spread use of organic and liquid fertilizers.

Bulk fertilizer imports have been sighted as one of the key import items which is currently causing foreign exchange or US dollar outflow and causing the Kwacha to shed value.

The fact that the massive fertilizer import bill needs an urgent solution was confirmed by the Central bank – BOZ, when they sighted Agro input, petroleum and US dollar debt repayments as the three major contributors to straining the local currency and constituting the major forex drainers in Zambia.

One Agro firm – Orgachem Zambia Limited has proposed that the country which urgently needs to stabilize its currency and reduce on its import bill should consider a transformational approach and consider adopting the use of more technologically advanced and cost effective liquid or soluble fertilizers.

Orgachem Limited Chairman Ahmed Patel told the Zambian Business Times – ZBT in an exclusive interview that that his company does manufacture soluble fertilizer and European standard liquid fertilizers, which is both chemical and organic. He added that the company’s licenses are from Europe as this is new technology which may just be the solution for Zambia.

He said liquid fertilizer has advantages, which include covering a bigger area, cheaper than what is currently on the market, more effective as it is spread to the leaf rather than the soil and has different varieties, which will help both the soil and the plant.

Patel further said that soluble fertilizer is easy to manufacture and transport as it mainly comes in bottles, which are much easier to carry and is cheaper in terms of labour because it does not require very big machinery.

The Organchem Chairman mentioned that the company’s target is to reduce chemical fertilizers and encourage the use of organic fertilizers adding that the company uses vegetable waste, cow manure waste among other materials. These materials are locally available in Zambia.

He said the company rarely buys any raw materials from outside the country and strives to use the raw materials available in the country in order to keep the production costs low so that the fertilizer can be sold at a reasonable price. Orgachem range of fertilizers are sold below K200, which is almost half of the price for chemical fertilizers.

He however added that the company does import certain materials which are not available in the country but also gets some of the material the company uses to blend it’s fertilizer from its competitors as it tries to avoid importing materials because that increases the cost of production which might result in increasing the price for the fertilizer.

“People are no longer using the fertilizer that we are using here in Zambia, people are more into new technology which is liquid fertilizer, soluble fertilizer which are the things which am trying to introduce on the market”, he said.

Patel said the liquid fertilizer was introduced in January this year on the market and the company has been doing research on it for almost two years and have done trials in Zambia and Europe.

He said some small-scale farmers have responded positively to the fertilizer as well as commercial farmers, where some trails have been done. The company has also taken advantage of the current wheat season, and supplies some commercial farmers with the liquid fertilizer.

He added that the company will be able to decide what direction to take in December this year as they are still doing trails. He urged Zambian small scale farmers to try out this technologically advanced product.

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Zambia’s massive fertilizer import bill can be

Agribusiness

Agro production in Zambia is recording tremendous progress across most key food and cash crops. One such cash crop is cotton with yields expected to expand by about 20%. If such growth rates of over 20% are sustained over the next five years, it would spur the eventual re-development of the textile and apparel secondary industry in Zambia.

The Cotton Board of Zambia has disclosed that the production of cotton is expected to increase from 55,000 metric tonnes to 66,000 metric tonnes for the 2020/2021 farming season due to the increase in the planted area.

Board Executive Director Sunduzwayo Banda said there is more planted area this year compared to the previous year, which technically means there will be an increase in the tonnes to be harvested.

According to information made available to the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Banda said there are currently 286,000 farmers across the country who are growing cotton, noting that the buying price for cotton this year which has increased to K7.5 per kg.

The Cotton Board of Zambia said there was an increase in production in the 2019/2020 farming season, which was because of the buying price, which was higher than the previous year.

Banda mentioned that the highest buying price, which was K4.2 per Kg for the 2019/2020 farming season encouraged more farmers to grow the crop and more were expected to venture into cotton growing because of the pricing, which has gone up this year.

He however said that the production could have been more but that some challenges such as the adverse weather conditions in some cotton growing areas some of which were flooded which led to fields been abandoned and a pest attack in the valleys of Sinazongwe, in Southern Province also caused low production in the 2019/2020 farming season.

“So the pest damage caused a loss in terms of what we were expecting, however we also have competitor crops like soya beans which were offering higher prices than what we were offering, so that also contributed to the key challenges in terms of production, he said.”

He also mentioned that the association is working on re-arranging the marketing strategy in order to have a more organised market, quality control in terms of inputs and improvements on the seed quality and the integrated pest management in handling pests in an effort to try to fully revive the sector.

Banda said Zambia had about 225,000 cotton farmers and this farmers are mostly based in the Northern, Muchinga, Eastern, Southern, Central and Lusaka provinces last year which has now increased to 286, 000 this year.

“We are not on the Copperbelt, Western, North-Western and parts of the Northern province due to the soil conditions and climatic requirements of the crop. Cotton needs 600-800 mm of rainfall, anything higher or lower than that, it will not grow properly. It also needs a temperature between 21 and 31 degrees centigrade, so those areas have temperatures as low as 11 and 12, others as high as 39 and 40 degrees, so the crop does not do well in such areas.

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Agro production in Zambia is recording tremendous