Maravi

FRA considers buying maize outside Africa

FRA considers buying maize outside Africa
Written by Kabanda Chulu
Tuesday, December 23, 2008 12:38:58 PM

THE Food Reserve Agency (FRA) is considering the importation of the remaining 25,000 metric tonnes of maize from outside Africa due to a limitation of sources for non-GMO maize in the region.

And FRA executive director Anthony Mwanaumo has said the institution would be releasing 30,000 metric tonnes of maize every month in order to stabilise the price of mealie-meal.

Last month, the government directed the FRA to immediately import 100,000 metric tonnes of white non-GMO maize but by last week, only three companies had been contracted to supply and deliver 75,000 metric tonnes beginning end of January 2009.

During the FRA end-of-year party over the weekend, Dr Mwanaumo said the maize imports would be for the purposes of replenishing the strategic grain reserves.

“There is a limitation of supply of the commodity since we are looking for non-GMO and we might consider looking outside the region so that we can have the required stocks and in this regard extreme care has been taken to ensure that quality assurance on the testing for GMO is undertaken,” he said.

He said the FRA had also worked out procedures for the release of the maize stocks and protective mechanisms to ensure that mealie-meal prices were stabilised.

“For the month of December, we released 20,000 metric tonnes but under the new mechanisms, the FRA will be making monthly releases of 30,000 metric tonnes and all buyers will sign a legal instrument for the purpose of achieving government’s objective of stabilising mealie-meal prices,” Dr Mwanaumo said.

“The FRA has also continued to supply maize to DMMU and WFP for food relief purposes. In addition, we are facilitating local sales to communities (five bags per household per month) in districts throughout the country in the continued efforts to mitigate the high mealie-meal prices.”

The FRA has also engaged Camco of China and the Zimbabwe Grain Marketing Board to rehabilitate and upgrade the storage sheds and grain silos around the country at a cost of US $11.6 million and US$2.2 million respectively.

This development would result in the country having additional 150,000 metric tonnage storage capacity from the current two million metric tonnes capacity.

Dr Mwanaumo refused to state the exact tonnage which the FRA had in reserves.

And reflecting on the 2008 operations, Dr Mwanaumo said the reduction in budgetary allocation from K240 billion to K80 billion resulted in reduced satellite depots to 126 from the previous 700 across the country.

“This reduction of depots created problems for farmers in accessing buying points because of the long distances but this also created an opportunity for the private sector to enter the market, and also there were reports of both traders and farmers selling their maize outside the country where higher prices were being offered,” said Dr Mwanaumo.

“However, to respond to the challenges, the FRA implemented measures like increasing the price of maize from K45,000 to K55,000 per 50 kg bag and extending the closure of the crop purchase from 30 September to 31 October. And these measures resulted in FRA recording additional purchases of 11,500 metric tonnes during extension period, hence bringing total purchases to 70,261 metric tonnes out of the targeted 80,000 metric tonnes.”

Labels: FRA, MAIZE

posted by MrK @ 12:39 PM