Maravi

Don’t get excited with maize exports

Don’t get excited with maize exports
By Editor
Mon 09 Nov. 2009, 04:01 CAT

THE government’s decision to export maize to Kenya needs to be considered carefully to avoid problems of shortages before the next harvest. Government has announced that they intend to export 100,000 metric tonnes of maize to Kenya following a request from that country and they are also expected to donate 9,000 metric tonnes to Zimbabwe as promised by Rupiah Banda recently.

While we support acts of solidarity towards our neighbouring countries such as Zimbabwe where people desperately need more maize, we think that the government should be cautious.

We say this because we have had instances in the past where the government has had to ask the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) to import maize after exporting maize.

We have had to import maize at a much higher price than that of our exported maize. For instance, Zambia’s Crop Forecast Survey (CFS) announced by the Ministry of Agriculture last year estimated the 2008 maize crop at 1.2 million tonnes and experts in the industry warned of the looming deficit of maize on the local market. But there was resistance as some stakeholders felt that importing maize would disadvantage local farmers.

Then agriculture minister Ben Kapita was even hopeful that the maize stocks at the time would suffice through to the next farming season, although he could not state whether the country would need to source maize imports in 2009. Had the concerns of a looming deficit been taken seriously, probably maize could have been imported at that time when the kwacha was trading favourably against other major currencies. Alas, the FRA ended up importing maize at a much higher price later in that year.

We are aware that the crop and forecasting survey for the 2008/2009 season, which was released in May by agriculture minister Dr Brian Chituwo indicated that Zambia produced 1,888,773 metric tonnes with a maize carry-over stock of 62,035 metric tonnes. This is against the total national consumption of 1,747,537 metric tonnes, leaving a surplus of 203,271 metric tonnes.

In essence, when we export 100,000 metric tonnes of maize to Kenya and 9,000 metric tonnes donation to Zimbabwe are delivered, Zambia will remain with less than 100,000 metric tonnes of maize in reserve. And we hope that this will be enough for the country. Zambia has not reached a level of self-sufficiency in food and our members of parliament are always asking for relief food for their people who are starving in their constituencies. There are many places in the country where people are in need of food and government would do well to focus on these areas.

According to the 2009 Global Hunger Index published by Concern Worldwide, International Food Policy Research Institute and Welthhungerhilfe, Zambia has been ranked in the alarming category with countries like Angola, Central African Republic, Djibouti, Liberia and Haiti. The key findings of the report are that the recent global recession, financial crisis and climate change are a deadly cocktail of hunger and malnutrition. Our people lack the basic necessities, and food is one of them. The availability of food or the amount of food that our people cultivate, their physical, economic and social access to food still continues to be a challenge both in urban and rural areas. For those who have a little, the quality or nutritional adequacy leaves much to be desired. They say food security is achieved when all people have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food for a healthy and active life. This is what we need to work towards achieving as a country.

The government needs to be worried that 45 years after independence, some people in rural areas are relying on relief food and yet the country has so much fertile land and vast water resources which can support agriculture. We need to be worried that we have members of parliament who have to spend their time lobbying for relief food instead of looking at ways in which areas such as road infrastructure, health services and education can be improved for the benefit of the people.

We know that some of the problems related to hunger are caused by natural calamities such as floods and we cannot blame anyone for that. But we need to be ready to come to the aid of the people in these flood-prone areas since this is a perennial problem, which we are aware of. We can do so much with some of that maize that the Ministry of Agriculture wants to sell or donate to help our people. This is the right time to prepare for such problems as opposed to running around when people are desperately in need, the situation has peaked with suffering already high. It will not help to start asking for donations from well-wishers to help us when it is too late and yet the Zambia Meteorological Department has already indicated that rainfall will be normal to above normal in certain parts of the country this seaon.

The food-related problems faced by our people will not go away if we continue to take measures that are not prudent. They will not go away if those in government do not learn to put the interests of people above those of their own pockets.

We need to plan and ensure that the country is food-secure. We should not rush to export just because we seem to have a bumper harvest. It appears we don’t seem to learn from our past experiences as a country. And this is very worrying. There is so much that needs to be done to increase our agricultural output. Our country has so much potential which is not being exploited. There is need to ensure that farming inputs are accessible and affordable. Yes, there is the Farmer Input Support Programme that the government is implementing but this programme has just targeted 500,000 small-scale farmers.

We know that last year the government targeted to help 200,000 farmers and the number was this year increased to 500,000 but the packages were reduced to accommodate more people. There is more that can be done by making inputs readily available and affordable because there are many farmers out there who can produce a lot of food but lack the necessary farming implements. We need to find ways of helping more farmers so that we can even increase our national output. And probably this is where Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia (NCZ) comes in. One cannot help but wonder why problems at the company cannot be sorted out to enable it to run normally. Again, it is the issue of personal gain that is hindering progress at NCZ. They don’t want this company to fully deal with the issue of fertiliser because they make a lot of easy money from importing fertiliser themselves.

There’s need for the government to pay a lot of attention to irrigation. We rely so much on rain-fed agriculture and we have suffered seriously in times of droughts and probably that is the only time that government sings the song of promoting irrigation. There was even talk of setting up the irrigation fund at one time and one can only hope that the idea is still being worked on because it can help greatly in the agriculture sector. We are also aware of the challenges in the crop marketing system of the country, which leaves a lot to be desired. FRA needs to be adequately equipped to enable them to play their role of creating strategic reserves of food as opposed to the current trend of firefighting at the eleventh hour.

We need to take a more rational approach to solving the problem of food insecurity and subsequently reduce disease and poverty levels, which are currently too high. It is not a secret that the numbers of hungry people are increasing and food security will only be achieved through increased agricultural production.

A shortage of maize will lead to millers not meeting the mealie-meal demand. And such a shortage will certainly lead to increased mealie-meal prices and inflation. This can be a source of political instability if not addressed properly.

The government should be seen to be working towards lifting the poor from the quagmire of poverty as opposed to worsening it. Yes, problems will always be there but we need to find solutions to ease the impact they have on our people.

Labels: EXPORTS, KENYA, MAIZE

posted by MrK @ 8:31 AM