Agriculture Minister, Reuben Mtolo Phiri has allayed fears that the country could be food insecure next year due to erratic rainfall.
Mr. Phiri has re-assured the nation that there are sufficient stocks of maize to cater for the country’s consumption next year in an event of poor yields arising from the 2021/2022 farming season due to poor rainfall coupled with the outbreak of armyworms.
Mr. Phiri insisted that the government will therefore not ban the export of maize and explained that the country will be setting bad precedence by banning the export of maize and other agricultural produce.
His sentiments were echoed by Vice President Mutale Nalumango who assured the nation of food security for now despite floods that have ravaged some areas.
Ms. Nalumango said the maize stored in different Food Reserve Agency (FRA) sheds in the country give hope that the nation is still food secure.
She was speaking when she toured the largest FRA storage shed in Southern Province located in Kalomo.
She said she was happy with the way the FRA is keeping the grain, and advised the agency to continue protecting the commodity from moisture to avoid losses.
Ms. Nalumango said it would be prudent to keep the maize grain well, especially since the country is experiencing floods.
And Southern Province Minister, Cornelius Mweetwa, told the Vice President that the defence forces which were engaged to transport the maize to FRA sheds, affirmatively concluded the “Operation Butala” at a minimum cost.
Mr. Mweetwa said the province was one of the regions that had surplus maize which was not budgeted for.
He said upon taking over the leadership of the country, the new dawn administration decided to buy all the maize from farmers because it was almost going to waste.
Meanwhile, FRA Southern Region Marketing Officer, Precious Kalamba, disclosed that the Kalomo sheds are holding over 400, 000 bags of maize weighing 50 kilograms each.
This shows that Edgar and the PF government did a very good job if maize exports continue under this dark government.
This government should congratulate Edgar for the 2020/2021 farming season.
Let’s see what the dark government will give us this year.
The ban would suffocate the agriculture sector. The solution is to mass produce, engage our Zambia National service, unemployed youth to join forces with government and mass produce for export. Agriculture must be a priority for employment creation
If only cadres were caged by Edgar. Otherwise he did well in food production. If only….
THE COUNTRY IS NOT SABLE IN MAIZE RESERVES
WAIT AND SEE THIS SEASONS CROP
THEN YOU WILL UNDERSTAND
Henry – How can you say he did a good job when every deal in the maize tender and procurement process was corupt and prices inflated so cadres could line their pockets…today PF is broke dead broke because the trusuary was their gravy train. Maize export during PF was only for cadres and the sad part was not that they bought maize from farmers but they helped themselves to FRA reserves.
FRA needs to modernise stop using 50 Kg sacks for storage and use modern commerical silos where it is very easy to store for the long term and use Grain tankers to transport its cheaper less labour intensive like transporting fuel. There is less theft of corn as everything is measure and weighted to the last gram in silos and can all be monitored centrally from Head office.
Very wise and pragmatic move by the govt, look people maize is an agricultural commodity and when you put restrictions on its ex6port you are lowering the price of the commodity hence discouraging farmers from growing it. Well done to the govt on this one, PF failed miserably in this area and made farmers beggars because of their selective export ban, selective in the sense that only certain well connected PF crooks were obtaining export permits. I pray we never go back to those days.
I am all for maize Exports but I only hope the calculations are correct. If we have food shortages due to over export of the commodity then I expect the minister to resign.
It’s not enough the minister showed give an estimated food supply and demand outlook especially good balancesheets for maize rice wheat fish and meats for people to see excess of deficits that may result from poor crop yeilds or projected surplus given that global food supplies could be in deficits some regional Countries also Food price dollar imports could be in this case managed
Food balancesheets and projected yield Outlook this farming season That should include consumptions demand Outlook