Government warns Wheat Farmers against unnecessary Price Hiking

GOVERNMENT has warned wheat farmers against increasing the price of the commodity unnecessarily.

Wheat is the main raw material in the production of bread and hence higher wheat prices might push up the cost of bread.

Agriculture Minister Given Lubinda warned wheat farmers against increasing prices for the commodity unnecessarily.

Mr Lubinda said the Government would have no choice but to allow the importation of cheaper wheat if farmers hiked the prices for wheat.

He was speaking in an interview in Livingstone at the ongoing 2016 Pan-African Grain Legume and World Cowpea Conference at AVANI Victoria Falls Hotel in Livingstone.

The conference has brought together more than 500 delegates across the world and they include the world’s most eminent scientists, researchers, academia, agriculture and nutrition campaigners and promoters of food and nutrition security.

It is being held under the theme “sustainable grain legume systems for food, income and nutrition security in a rapidly changing environment”.

Mr Lubinda said wheat prices locally must be equal to or below the import parity price for the benefits of Zambians.

He said Zambia imported for wheat for only three months in 2015 when the farmers had exhausted their wheat for 2014 to 2015 season.

“Today we are not importing because farmers have harvested their wheat. I am however aware there are some farmers who are refusing to sell their wheat to millers because they are anticipating higher prices.

“I would like to say to them that if farmers start demanding higher prices than the import parity price of wheat at the expense of the consumers, Government will have no choice but to allow the importation of cheaper wheat. So I am hoping the farmers can take heed of my request that they must not unnecessarily increase prices,” Mr Lubinda said.

And Mr Lubinda has said the Zambian Government was determined to make Zambia the food basket of the region in neighbouring countries and contribute significantly to the global food supply chain.

He also urged African countries to put the hand hoe in the museums and promote a mechanised and smart agriculture because the hoe had outlined its usefulness in agriculture.

Mr Lubinda said his Government had developed various short term, medium and long term interventions to make agriculture the mainstay of the Zambian economy.

He was speaking in Livingstone on Monday when he officially opened the first joint Pan-African Grain Legume and World Cowpea Conference currently being held at AVANI Victoria Falls Hotel.

Mr Lubinda said the Government was committed to ensuring that farmers were involved in the production of a wide range of crops that would ensure that the country’s food and nutritional security status was sustained.

“As Zambian Government, we are determined to make Zambia the food basket of the region and contribute significantly to the global food supply chain.

“As such, we invite investors in agriculture to call on us to pursue this important agenda,” Mr Lubinda said.

He also said there was need for the continent to promote a mechanised and smart agriculture as well as the introduction of digital or ICT solutions to enhance crop production.

“The African woman and the African youth cannot continue to till the land using such backbreaking, inefficient and archaic tools.

“The youths who are driving modern computer based systems cannot beattracted to agricultural systems that are divorced from advanced technology,” Mr Lubinda said.

Mr Lubinda noted that 77 per cent of the 60 million farmers in Africa were subsistence farmers growing crops on less than one hectare each.

He said because of poor mechanisation in Africa, 65 per cent of workforce in African agriculture comes from human muscle against 35 per cent across the rest of the world.