GOVERNMENT has cautioned farmers particularly those in areas recently hit by dry spells against offloading all their new maize stock to unscrupulous buyers.
Some officers in the Ministry of Agriculture were currently carrying out a national crop focus survey to ascertain crop yields and needy areas of relief food.
Deputy Minister in the Office of the Vice President Stephen Kampyongo urged farmers to be patient and desist from selling their maize stock to traders who would exploit them.
He was speaking in an interview in reaction to some farmers in parts of Southern Province such as Chief Chikanta’s area in Kalomo who had already started selling this year’s maize yields.
“It’s important for farmers to consider reserving adequate maize instead of rushing to sale all new maize stock especially in those areas where there were dry-spells,” he said.
He said, though the Government was ready to distribute relief food to needy areas, it was important for people to be responsible and secure sufficient maize for consumption.
Mr Kampyongo said that it would be irresponsible for some people to offload their maize and wait for relief food from the Government.
Some parts of Zambia were expected to be hit by hunger after experiencing crop failure due to the dry spells as recently revealed by the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU).
The country was expected in the next few weeks to have food shortage which would leave millions of Zambians in need of food relief.
The DMMU has since prepared itself for relief food distribution mainly in Western, Southern and parts of Central provinces.
Schools have opened they need to send children to schools and the only source is the maize.
Its not like you minister with free fuel,free education allowances and moreover the cost of leaving is high.
Instead of stealing they are using the resources they have for survival
You hit the nail on the head. They don’t want wait for months for payment from FRA, they want cash in hand now!!!!!!!
Government for the uneducated will never realise it is not surposed to be fully involved in Maize buying but instead creating enabling environment for the businesses to florish. Why is it that every time we have a new leader in government regardless of his her education they miss the point of just providing enabling environment. Does it really pay for people to go to school when their reasoning capacities fails them when it come to running government. I think this is the worst government we have in place in memorial, reasoning is some what limited and even the type of people providing pro ideas are equally very shallow I dare say. Lungu should be on the look out, “your best friends are your Best enemies” , goes the adage.