The Food Reserve Agency (FRA) has apologized to the farming community following its decision not to buy soya beans in the 2022/2023 marketing season.
FRA Board Chairman Kelvin Hambwezya says the agency is sorry for the inconvenience it has caused to the farmers by not buying soya beans from them.
Mr Hambwezya stated that the agency reached the decision not to buy soya beans from the farmers with a heavy heart.
“Ideally, crops that are supported by FISP, it is a natural expectation that the FRA will procure them, soya beans is one such crop and it is with a heavy heart that as an agency we made that decision, it is not pleasing,” He said.
Mr Hambwezya however said the agency won’t sit idle but rather work with other stakeholders in the soya beans sector and assist farmers sell their soya beans.
“It was abrupt, I am very sorry of course for the inconvenience this could have caused to the farmers but what I would like to say is that we are not going to sit idle. We are going to work with other stakeholders and make sure that we assist farmers,” He said.
Mr Hambwezya said this last evening when He featured on ZNBC weekly Sunday interview programme on TV 1.
And when asked whether the decision not to purchase soyabeans was made abruptly after issuing a government gazette indicating that the agency would buy 50 thousand metric tons of soybeans?
Mr Hambwezya in response refuted claims that the decision not to buy soya beans was made abruptly.
He explained that the gazette indicating that FRA would buy 50 thousand metric tons of soyabeans was issued by management who were later guided by the board that the agency was not going to buy soyabeans as published in the press.
“No the decision was not abrupt, you know as FRA we don’t announce what we do on a daily basis to the public,” Mr Hambwezya stated.
The FRA Board Chairman admitted seeing the gazette issued by management however indicate that the matter is now water under the bridge.
“Yes management we want and issued the gazette, I saw it in the press anyway that’s water under the bridge. The truth was that the board guided management that we would not buy soya beans, the reasons that I gave you,” Mr Hambwezya.
Meanwhile FRA has assured soya beans farmers that it will move in to buy soya beans once it offloads the correcting stocks it is holding in the national reserves.
Mr Hambwezya said the agency will definitely move in to buy soya beans from the small scale farmers should it find the market for the soya beans it holds in the reserves.
“If we manage to offload the soya beans we have now there is no doubt we will go into the market to buy soya beans,” He said.
Mr Hambwezya expressed optimism during the live programme that soon FRA would soon sell the carryover stocks of soya beans.
He hinted that the agency was today 29th May Monday expected to meet a delegation from Indian and other groups that want to buy the soya beans from FRA.
“Will be selling it very soon. There is a delegation from India that we will be talking to tomorrow (Monday 29th ) and other groups that are coming around, we are hoping to sell that soya beans, if we sell it very soon we will enter the market to buy soya beans,” He indicated.
And FRA has implored soya beans players in the private sector not to exploit the small scale farmers but rather buy at a fair price and export outside the country.
Mr Hambwezya revealed that the Ministry of Agriculture is offering an open door to anyone wishing to export soya beans outside Zambia.
“However, this is an opportunity for the private sector not to exploit the farmers but to buy the soya beans from the small scale farmers and take it for export, the Minister of Agriculture is clear, the doors are open for export for soya beans only, “he added.
He stressed that the private sector has a huge role to play in the buying of the soya beans from the small scale farmers.
The FRA Board Chairman said this year the country is expecting seven hundred and 80 thousand metric tons of soybeans.
He disclosed that the current local consumption of soya beans for both domestic and industrial standards is three hundred thousand metric tons.
Mr Hambwezya said the country has an excess of up to six hundred thousand metric tons of soya beans sitting with the farmers.
The apology is not accepted. It should have come from that arrogant chicarla HH
fuseke
Tikki if you continue being a deek, I will start ignoring you like I do that monkey friend of yours called tarino
Zambia is a low-income country that still needs a developmental state. This is a fact which has been proven in the economic history of every country on this planet, including the USA where economic fundamentalists want us to believe otherwise. The University of Zambia now has a department of Food Science in the School of Agriculture. If we’re willing to have the right dialogue between academia, the financial sector, government and the private sector, we can build new businesses from raw materials our agricultural sector is producing. Low-tech manufacturing is the traditional building bloc of any industrialisation effort.
In problems of such magnitude apologies don’t work. This might be the first time that commercial farmers will sell maize to FRA. It’s peasant farmers that have so far sustained the FRA. Due to the late delivery of inputs many opted to cultivate soyabeans because they looked forward to selling their produce to FRA. FRA has offered the best price for maize but has refused to buy soyabeans. While commercial farmers will benefit from the good maize price, peasant farmers are now stuck with soyabeans thereby worsening their situation. This isn’t what HH promised them. It’s not yet too late to do the correct thing, please buy soyabeans else you kill many peasant farmers that don’t have the connections to other markets
Ayatollah, u hv not read the whole report. In fact FRA intends to buy soya from farmers and will help in finding an export market for it.
They want to buy from poor farmers with no means to export at exploitative price & then sell at a profit. This behavior is worse than PF.
Good luck MAL, FRA & UPND your crimes are piling up like PF & we will read them to you in 2026. That’s how PF went down too bit by bit upsetting the poor Zambians.
Brew your own poison colleagues greed NEVER goes unpunished
Was it your decision or from the most intelligent man in Zambia? Don’t wear goat’s intestines on behalf of someone else.
India are ready to come in and buy the soya, we need to cut on red tape to facilitate this process. Soya is a high value crop with many uses in the food industry. Even if the State was to change its mind and buy soya then keep it for one year they will make huge profits and this is where they need to be looking at.
There is a huge demand for soya beans without FRA
So what is all the noise about ??
Tin cans make the loudest noise not so ??
The noise is about logistics. FRA reaches every farmer. That’s what the noise is about.
Let the president apologise. He announced that soya market will be sourced privately, individually by farmers. Besides last year’s marketing season was appaulling. Should we expect anything less horrific? No. We will competitively sell off to Tanganyika, Transvaal, Nyasaland, Zaire or Rhodesia.
Next is that there are plans to abolish Nhima for the aged.
Mr Prayers are useless…yaba but Zambia is in trouble after telling people to grow soyabean claiming it has ready market in china only to u turn, those are small scale farmers! Judas Iscariot….
When are heads going to roll?
Chipante pante Government..what more can I say
There’s no more incentive to grow Soyabeans in Zambia considering the exploitative Briefcase farmers. Soyabeans farming in Zambia has been officially been killed. At least buy even 10,000 metric tonnes to set a floor price for the poor farmers.
Back to growing vegetables I don’t have the money to buy fertilizer for Maize considering they are hybreed seeds which requires a lot of fertilizers. Good luck FRA hopefully your decision won’t backfire like you messed up with Maize. Seems you haven’t learnt once people lose confidence it’s hard to regain it. Just shooting yourselves in the foot
Ministry of Agriculture you haven’t learned from past mistecks. The more people you give subsidized fertilizer the more Maize FRA can buy. Stop being economical with food & being suspicious with everyone on FISP. Maize production is a direct relationship with fertilizer distribution which should be timely too.