The 2016/17 agriculture marketing season is scheduled to start on June 1. The preferred moisture content for grains such as maize, soybeans, groundnuts and other crops is 12.5 percent, which is suitable to be stored in the sheds (silos).
In an interview on Wednesday, ZNFU communications manager Kakoma Kaleyi said minimal adverse impact is expected to have occurred on some grains as a result of the late rainfall that showered in some parts of the country.
“We don’t expect the crops to rot but the moisture content will be too high, and the rate at which the moisture will drop to the required level will be slow, hence there will be delays in the sale of the commodities.
“But some buyers and traders will not mind to enter the market since they have dryers to quicken the process,” he said.
And the Meteorological Department says the late rainfall that was characterised by hailstorms in some parts of Lusaka was due to a cool vertical atmosphere that did not support its melting into rain.
Senior meteorological officer Victor Bupe said a cold front over the south-east coast of South Africa tilted towards the north, thereby interacting with the Congo air masses over the eastern half of Zambia.
“The fall of ice found a vertical atmosphere that could not support ice melting into rain,” Mr Bupe said in a statement.
Some parts of Lusaka last Sunday experienced heavy hailstorm.
Seems ZNFU only deals with grain,when the name suggests something different. Its very misleading,just from watching ZNBC news on tv1. A Chabota co-operative chairman has just been televised showing us the damage caused by the few minute hail storm to the tomotoes harvest. The co-operative supplied 150 boxes of tomotoes to chain stores and all ZNFU says is will not destroy the “grain” but delay the marketing season.
If its just grain that ZNFU deals in then the name needs to change to Zambia National Grain Union(ZNGU)
For more maize gate scandles…lol