Maravi

ZNFU reveals interference from millers on wheat import ban

ZNFU reveals interference from millers on wheat import ban
By Moses Kuwema
Tue 27 July 2010, 04:01 CAT

From left to right, Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) security unit chairman Charles Coxe, deputy commissioner of police Emmanuel Chileshe and ZNFU president Jervis Zimba listening to CMR farms of Kabwe managing director Sara Ashworth during the visit to her farm on Wednesday. - Picture by Moses Kuwema

ZAMBIA National Farmers Union (ZNFU) president Jervis Zimba has disclosed that there are people who are fighting to have the ban on wheat imports lifted. And Chimsoro Farms proprietor Constain Chilala has said only non Zambians can push for the reversal of the Statutory Instrument on wheat imports.

Speaking when he addressed farmers in Mkushi last week, Zimba said the country did not need any imports on wheat because the crop yield had not reduced. He said once the imports on wheat were allowed, Zambian farmers should forget about selling their wheat.

“This battle was fought, we said there is no need for wheat imports but again we are aware that the millers are working together with some directors at the Ministry of Agriculture to try and remove this SI. They started last year again now we are seeing this is what is happening…and because of the annoyance among the millers and some directors at the Ministry of Agriculture they are using a fake association just to be attacking ZNFU to say this is not right… its not correct we have to look at the bigger picture of farmers and what is happening,” he said.

He said Zambia was the only country in the southern Africa region, or perhaps in Africa, which could feed itself in any commodity but that there were people who were bent on destroying that potential.

“Some two weeks ago, one miller wrote to the minister to say you ban all exports of soya beans… now we have a bit of excess in terms of soya beans but what they want is to make sure the prices are suppressed and they pay the yields to the farmers for nothing...We have told them there is no need of writing letters to the minister, write your letters to the president of ZNFU who will then call a stakeholders' meeting and determine how much should go for exports, we did it last year,” he said.

And Zimba said farmers should this year brace themselves for hard times because of the commodity prices which he said were not good.

“Whatever you have produced no one knows where that maize is going to go so you are hammered with commodity prices. We need to put our heads together, for the issue of commodity prices in the country we are completely at cross roads. If you look at the briefings we sent you, all of you must have seen how the prices have dropped in a couple of months be it wheat, be it soya beans,” he said.

Zimba said the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) had totally lost direction, adding that the continued lack of a board at the agency was a source of concern for the farmers.

“They FRA keep interfering on the market at the wrong time all the time, you remember in the beginning of the year we had early maize to be taken on the market, most of it was stuck, today some of you have sold it for a song. There is nowhere in the world where you have a huge output of crops and the minister is delaying or failing to announce the board when he has got the names on the table, we can’t allow a situation like that. Right now as am talking there is an advert in the paper where the FRA is saying they have about 160,000 metric tonnes and they have just put a huge advert that traders should bid for it to try and see if they can buy it for exports…they have got no capacity as FRA to monitor whether that maize is going for exports or not. For heaven’s sake why can’t FRA themselves not secure the export market?” he wondered. “They have been telling us that they have secured almost a million tonnes of exports, then why advertise locally to allow other people to export it when FRA themselves have got the capacity to sell it, so as farmers we are braced for hard times this year its not going to be a good road in terms of the maize and we know the cost of production is high, how do farmers sell their commodity below the cost of production?”

Zimba said if the situation was allowed, the millers and traders would again start playing around with the prices of the commodity.

Zimba said the farmers were grateful to the government for finding money to buy maize but that it was unfortunate that the funds had not yet been released.

“We are now coming towards the end of July and you know when you are buying commodity under collateral management it takes long time meaning that they have got to buy and then after two to three weeks the banks have got to verify how much maize, is it true, the location, so for a farmer to get his money, we will be looking at may be another three weeks and who knows with the way the FRA plays games it may be a month, so these millers would say we have no choice but to keep buying and dispatching 42,000 and so forth. So we have a very serious problem at hand regarding the maize marketing season this year and I call it the national crisis,” he said.

Zimba said there was need for a serious intervention by the government because officials in the Ministry of Agriculture were reluctant to implement the presidential directive on exports.

“Again I met the president before the end of the year I said look, can we try and look at the exports to Democratic Republic of Congo DRC, the DRC problem we have is that we keep shutting the door, open it up, shut it...so the best thing we can do is can we have these quotas, agreed quotas between the DRC and in February the millers, ZNFU, grain traders we established a list of these quotas we should be able to be given to DRC agreed and they were given to them, to date as I am telling you ministry of agriculture has said no we cannot do that we shall give it to the joint permanent commission I think this is between the Copperbelt Province and the DRC, what a joke!
“We believe the Ministry of Agriculture is totally in reverse gear its like nobody seems to know whether we are going forward or backwards, the only time we see these Ministry of Agriculture officials very active is already now they know that they have got a serious crisis of the maize, they are already jumping talking about the Fertiliser Support Programme FSP programme that this year we are giving 900,000 farmers, they are more excited because this is where they cut deals. No one is interested about the FSP now what every farmer is interested in now is how he is going to secure his maize.”

And Chilala said the implementation of the SI was to protect the production of wheat in the country.

“The production of wheat is so high now to a level where we are able to feed even Katanga Province in the DRC, now if someone at the ministry decides to go against the presidential directive or advise against the presidential directive, that person is not Zambian he should be one of those who were involved in the importation of wheat which we heard in 2008 and 2009 where they brought 30,000 metric tonnes during our harvesting season,” Chilala said.

He said millers had become like briefcase business men because they did not want to buy the crop on time.

“They want us to keep the crop after growing it and then they want it for nothing. And unless this is resolved between the millers and the farmers it will see farmers now stop investing in wheat, they will start saying no investment in wheat is very expensive it requires you to buy centre pivots, irrigation equipment and those are very expensive,” he said.

And Chilala said a crop surplus without well organised marketing programmes put people into new and bigger problems.

“As a country we are able to produce these crops by the farmers, but farmers are now suffering that they can't get this crop to the market to process it so that the Zambians can eat it, one time I read in the newspaper where the Minister of Agriculture was saying we have got a bumper harvest now, so the food can go down but he forgot that that food costs money to produce, how does he expect that food to walk into homes as cheap as he was anticipating it to because someone spent money to grow the food he must sell it at a reasonable price for him to be able to grow a new crop this year,” said Chilala.

Labels: CHARLES COXE, COSTAIN CHILALA, JERVIS ZIMBA, MAIZE, MILLERS, ZNFU

posted by MrK @ 3:41 PM