The Zambia National Farmers Union has commended farmers, the small scale farmers, emergent and large scale for producing 3,387,469 metric tonnes of maize to make Zambia food secure.
ZNFU President Jervis Zimba says the Union recognizes the challenges the farmers went through last farming season among them the high cost of inputs and the uneven distribution of rain.
Mr. Zimba said this notwithstanding, farmers rose against adversity to produce a maize bumper harvest.
He has urged farmers to now focus on the marketing aspects.
Mr. Zimba said off-takers especially the Food Reserve Agency to ensure that farmers are paid an economic price to the farmers and pay them on time.
“We are five months away from the 2020/2021 farming season and we do recognize that the inputs costs have increased due to various factors”, he said.
Mr. Zimba said it is only by paying farmers an economic price for the maize that they have products that they expect them to invest for the coming season.
Well said Mr. Zimba but do you call a selling price of K110.00 per 50kg bag economical. Again its back to the same old story of paying peanuts to the farmer who has to pay a price of between K5 to 10 per bag to pay a transporter to take his maize to the market. The price that FRA has offered is too low looking at the rate of inflation and the rising costs of agri imputes. Once again the farmer will get demotivated and production come the next farming season will go down again. When we are suppose to keep the momentum going so that next season we even go above 4 million tones. Many farmers will be discouraged and produce less this coming season because the price is low. Maize can not be selling at $122.00 per tone in Zambia even Malawi beats as their maize sells at $550.00 per ton.
Uyu ndani ezefuna bally achite congratulate ati ndani uyu.
Feed the people, heal the people, educate the people. These are Zambia’s top priorities imo.
This is the correct statement. Praise goes to the farmers themselves not ECL.