Friday, April 25, 2008

(TIMES) Eastern Farmers clinch Dutch groundnuts deal

Eastern Farmers clinch Dutch groundnuts deal
By Gilbert Kaimana

A DUTCH import company, Tradin Organic, will start buying organically grown groundnuts from small scale organic farm producer cooperatives in Petauke. Tradin Organic has agreed in principal to buy groundnuts from the organic producers under a deal arranged with the assistance of the Organic Producers and Processors Association of Zambia (OPPAZ).

In an interview in Lusaka, OPPAZ chief executive officer, Mushimbwe Chitalu said the Dutch company initially wanted to buy 5,000 tonnes of groundnuts but the Petauke based cooperatives could not meet the quantities required.

Tigwilizane Cooperative of Petauke was only able to produce 100 tonnes of the organic groundnuts.
Mr Chitalu said the association was working with the farmers to help them organise themselves in order to produce more quantities.

The Dutch firm would be offering other services to the cooperatives it would be working with in Eastern Province to enable them increase production output of the organically-grown groundnuts.
Tradin Organic would be working in partnership with OPPAZ to introduce extension services, trade financing and capacity building services for the farmers.

He said the farmers would have an advantage in dealing with Tradin Organic because the organisation was certified as a fair trade organisation.
OPPAZ helps in, among other things, linking organic producers and processors to markets and financing.

“Small scale farmers rarely have markets for their crops, so we help develop market linkages as well as financing for them,” he said.
The association promotes a variety of organically-produced crops in Northern, North-Western, Central and Copperbelt provinces.

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Developed countries creating unfair competition - OPPAZ

Developed countries creating unfair competition - OPPAZ
By Fridah Zinyama
Wednesday October 17, 2007 [04:00]

The Organic Producers and Processors Association of Zambia (OPPAZ) has said competition is severely constrained between producers in industrialised countries and those in the developing world. In a joint statement on the World Food Day 2007 whose theme was the ‘Right to Food’, OPPAZ and the International Forum of Organic Agriculture Movement (IFOAM) stated that developed countries dumped their agricultural surpluses in developing countries thus creating unfair competition.

“When sold on the world market at less than the cost of production, these surpluses depress local prices, thereby lowering production and people’s direct access to food, although they may officially have a ‘Right to food’ in their own countries,” they stated.

The two organisations stated that with such practices it would be difficult to ensure that developing countries produced enough food to meet their demands.

“The right to food is the right of every person to have regular access to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable food for an active, healthy life,” they stated.

They added that it was the right to feed oneself in dignity and produce healthy and culturally appropriate food through ecologically, socially and economically sound methods, defining one’s own food systems that was important rather than the right to be fed.

“This counts for each and every individual, as well as for communities and regions,” they stated.

And OPPAZ and IFOAM also stated that the ‘Right to Food’ also meant that life could not be patented.

“Patents on life support, the monopoly control of genetic resources by few, thereby extensively undermining people’s rights and access to food,” stated the two organisations.

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