Millers to actively participate in maize purchase

Millers to actively participate in maize purchase
By Mutale Kapekele
Mon 03 May 2010, 22:40 CAT

MILLERS Association of Zambia (MAZ) executive officer Harrison Banda says the association will actively purchase maize to ensure that farmers have a market. In a statement yesterday, Banda welcomed the K65, 000 Food Reserve Agency (FRA) maize floor price.

“It should be noted that MAZ members already reduced mealie-meal prices in the last two weeks,” Banda stated. “Our consumers should appreciate that this year’s maize price of K65,000 per 50 kg bag was exactly the same as for last year’s season which saw mealie meal prices being stabilised almost throughout the year, despite an increase in millers’s carrying cost of maize stocks which include storage, fumigation, security and finance charges.”

He said that because of the cost of stocking maize, it would be unreasonable to expect further reductions in the price of mealie meal when the base price of the raw material (maize) has remained constant which will go up with the costs being carried.

Banda said that MAZ was hopeful that with the carryover stocks from last year’s season and the expected bumper harvest for this year, there could be excess supply of maize on the market and depending on the interaction of the market forces of supply and demand, the price of both maize and mealie-meal could go down around June and July to the benefits of consumers.

He said that MAZ would work with other stakeholders to pursue the export markets to enable the surplus maize to be milled and exported as value added products, thereby creating additional demand for the farmers’ maize and encourage them to grow more crop in the next season.