Maravi

Wasting a bumper harvest

Wasting a bumper harvest
By The Post
Mon 15 Nov. 2010, 04:00 CAT

Attention needs to be paid to the concerns being raised country-wide over the risk of maize going to waste. Zambia has this year produced 2.8 million metric tonnes of maize and the government has spent over K1.2 trillion purchasing the crop.

The government this year allocated K435 billion for the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) and K100 billion to the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) to procure maize from the farmers.

We also know that the FRA acquired a K700 billion loan for this purpose. Of the 2.8 million metric tonnes of maize, the FRA have procured 756,011 while the millers have also bought part of the maize.

We know that of the 2.8 million metric tonnes, only 1.4 million is for sale, and when we subtract what the millers and FRA have procured, we still remain with some surplus, which could go to waste.

We very much agree with those raising concerns over the manner in which this bumper harvest has been handled. But we also think that there is need for the government to meditate on the amounts of money being spent on maize alone.

Food security is key in any country and there can be no meaningful poverty reduction without food security.

We support the efforts that our farmers are making to ensure increased harvests of maize but there is need to ensure that adequate attention is paid to the agriculture sector as a whole.

The K1.2 trillion that the government has spent on maize purchases this year is equivalent to the K1,219 trillion that the government intends to borrow domestically to finance next year’s budget and close to the K1,587 trillion it intends to source from cooperating partners.

We should also not forget the fact that our maize was this year purchased at about US$260 per metric tonne, which is way above the international prices of maize and does not include storage and other associated costs.

This automatically makes exports very difficult because our commodity ends up being highly priced if you compare with markets such as South Africa.

This in essence means that we will have to subsidise the region and make a loss despite the huge sums of money that the government has pumped into this one commodity.

The FRA also avoided the cost of bags by allowing farmers to bring their maize in smallholder farmer bags but this cost will still have to be met should they decide to export some of this maize.

The FRA had maize carryover stocks of 160,000 metric tonnes from last year’s farming season and we are told that they have already exported 80,000 metric tonnes, unbelievable as it is especially if they used road transportation.

But they still have another 80,000 metric tonnes to grapple with.

We are simply stuck with this maize, which we can only export to specific expensive areas and the costs keep on rising every month.

Actually, we could be under pressure should the country have another bumper harvest next year.

Looking at the monies that are being spent on maize alone and the inevitable losses as far as exports are concerned, there is need for the government to really look at the way they are managing the agriculture sector as a whole.

This focus on maize and the billions that they are getting in form of loans will not help to make a dent on the poverty that our people are wallowing in.

We will keep talking about bumper harvests with poverty levels standing at over 60 per cent and hunger in most flood-prone areas.

We need to understand that there is more to agriculture than just promoting maize production and marketing. Proper diversification will only materialise if serious attention is paid to developing the various sectors in the country and not just mere lip-service.

The agriculture sector will only develop if structural problems such as feeder roads and storage sheds are worked on.

As long as roads continue to be impassable and washed away during the rainy season, and as long as those tasked to stock the country’s grains are not able to handle a few more metric tonnes, then the government’s talk of developing the agriculture sector is simply empty rhetoric.

As long as proper extension services are not provided to our farmers in the rural areas, as long as the rural electrification programme is not implemented well and irrigation infrastructure remains confined to the political campaign agenda to woo voters, we should forget about a proper agriculture sector.

A lot has been said about the bumper harvest and how Rupiah Banda is responsible for it.

However, this is debatable, especially that the country experienced favourable weather and the FISP only covers 200,000 farmers. Singing praises about a bumper harvest that could even see the country making losses will not help matters much.

And it is even more worrying when one looks at next year’s budget. We know that the only relief on agriculture is the zero rating of duty on hammer mills.

While this is welcome, such a measure is useless if the beneficiary cannot access financing or business development services.

Agriculture still remains a critical component for economic development and food security in our country. It is the mainstay of the rural people.

And this is the more reason why they need inputs on time and at affordable prices.

And if the government wants to reduce the poverty levels further from the current 64 per cent, they need to pay special attention to this sector.

We have difficulties understanding the government’s commitment to growing the country’s economy because at times their pronouncements do not tally with their actions.

In countries where agricultural productivity has risen, the fastest rates of economic growth have occurred.

Actually, we need to understand that an increase in agricultural yields could go a long way in reducing the number of people currently living below the poverty datum line.

Arguably, hunger and food insecurity have many causes often outside agriculture but it remains a vital contributor to national household food security.

For the country to have a dramatically improved performance in this key sector, particularly small and medium-scale agriculture, we need to plough our resources in the right institutions like the Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia.

We may not have control over issues such as global prices of commodities but we can at least have national policies and initiatives that provide the right incentives for our people, which will ultimately lead to the growth of the sector.

Labels: AGRICULTURE, FRA, GOVERNANCE, MAIZE

posted by MrK @ 4:14 AM