OILSEED crops can increase farm revenues if the smallholder farmers produced efficiently to obtain fair market prices, says Edible Oil Refiners Association consultant Aubrey Chibumba.
Mr Chibumba said it was important that diversification options were made available to the economy, adding that Zambia was a limited exporter of protein principally because of lack of stock feed.
He said locally produced oil could enable Government to cut back on crude oil imports which currently stand at over US$70 million annually.
Mr Chibumba said locally packed oils were cheaper than the crude edible oil imported from Indonesia and Malaysia because this was only promoting value addition in those respective countries.
He said it was important to increase the availability of stock feed, if additional employment was to be created.
Mr Chibumba said the demand for edible oils in Zambia was huge and would continue to grow as the country developed.
He said programmes for the introduction of structured edible oil markets would support the smallholder farmers to improve their farming efficiency and access to markets.
Mr Chibumba said the animal husbandry sector also supported the meat processing and meat packing sub-sectors.
He said industries in Zambia with significant growth potential could only be realized if the underpinning edible oil sector was operating effectively.
“More than half of Zambia’s edible oil consumption is imported from the Far East, East Africa and South Africa. The cost of importing edible oil from the Far East can account for around a third of its retail price,” Mr Chibumba said.
He said the edible oil industry was one of the largest sectors in Zambia, and also critical to food production in the country.
Over US$150 million has been invested in the industry to produce 20,000 metric tonnes of refined vegetable oil per month – over twice the domestic consumption of just less than 10,000 metric tonnes per month.
Some of these organisations are just useless instead of providing policy direction they just state the obvious. ..all those groundnuts produced yearly alongside maize surely?
…I wonder if the govt even bother to send ‘experts’ to inspect and evaluate the source of some of these products….some may be produced from residential backyards….without any health standards or quality assurance…..packaging alone is not enough…
That is why people like gbm are oberse.
All that money for cooking oil? We dont even need it. Where are the nutritionists to teach our households how to cook?
Comment:Zambia can utilize the New Lima Bean for vegetable oil production & stockfeed. >15% oil content .It was created by the Zambian invention No34/2007 by G.A.NGOMA +260972125835
Mr Aubrey Chibumba has got a tight slap on his face. He was the one pushing cooking oil import ban. And as soon as the ban was implemented the prices of local cooking oil doubled. Mr Aubrey….we are watching you and your greedy intentions to monopolize with the local manufacturers. Government is not stupid. Local manufacturers tankers were impounded by ZRA which were declared as crude but was eventually refined oil on inspection. Mr Aubrey you are an old man let people respect you rather than abuse you.
and in your wisdom, the exchange rate had nothing to do with it?? raw materials in zambia (oilseed) are dollar based, chemicals-dollar based, coal(main energy source) from mamba is dollar based……..
This is a dying battle, it is easier in Zambia to trade then manufacture, our borders are porous, so easier o undervalue and import and sell, i dont see why companies actually invest here in this industry, utter foolishness, we all know what the borders are like, and we all know how it works…..forget about manufacturing, just go to south africa or whereever, import and sell…otherwise your investments will die…
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