'Farmers shouldn't be blamed for selling maize to Malawi'

'Farmers shouldn't be blamed for selling maize to Malawi'
By Chiwoyu Sinyangwe
Monday August 04, 2008 [04:00]

ZAMBIA National Farmers Union (ZNFU) coordinator for Eastern Province Fanson Botha has said farmers should not be blamed for selling their maize to Malawi. Farmers in Eastern Province are opting to sell their maize to Malawi for as much as K58,000 per 50 kilogramme bag, more than the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) floor price of K45,000.

Botha said the fact that FRA had failed to purchase enough maize this season and allowing some maize to be sold in Malawi was defeating the whole purpose of the Fertiliser Support Programme (FSP), which was initiated to alleviate hunger.

“Today government under Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) may blame our farmers for smuggling our produce across the borders, but who is at fault? Who has caused such a thing to happen? Let the farmers be allowed to sell where they can because FRA has no money to buy this year’s produce and only two satellite depots per district is a total mockery to a farmer. Travelling costs for produce from point A – B is very costly for our farmers,” he said.

Botha also predicted that mealie meal price - which currently was around K54,000 per 25 kilogrammes - would soar to above K80,000 if the continued selling of maize to Malawi by local farmers was not halted.

“Three quarters of the produce is being ferried to Malawi every day whilst FRA has already exhausted figures it was requested to purchase from farmers. Last season FRA bought about 318,000 bags of maize, but this year only 27,900X 50 kilogrammes were purchased.

And what shall our farmers do with the extra 290,100 which they produced after government gave them the inputs on subsidy and that subsidy is now benefiting our neighbours?” he asked.