Mon, 31 Jul 2017 14:49:42 +0000
By Buumba Chimbulu
THE Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) has told farmers to hold on to their maize and not sell a single grain to the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) until a meeting to resolve the commodity prices between the two institutions takes place.
ZNFU president, Jervis Zimba, said they would soon be calling for a meeting with FRA to resolve the maize prices of K60 per 50-kilogramme bag and he had since urged farmers to hold on to their grain.
“I am urging all the farmers to hold on to their maize and not to sell to FRA, we are calling for a meeting with FRA to discuss this matter and if we fail to reach a conclusion, we shall appeal to President Edgar Lungu to intervene in this matter,
“It is a very serious matter which requires brains to resolve. Framers should not sell not even a single grain to FRA. We are writing to FRA until this meeting is resolved. It is a very depressing market price, as you may know the cost of production is K75,” he said.
Mr. Zimba said in an interview that he had been receiving disturbing reports that briefcase buyers were offering farmers in Vubwi K35 per 50-kg bag and Kalomo K40 per 50-kg and below respectively.
He lamented that with such prices, Zambia was likely to import maize grain in 2019 as most farmers would not grow maize.
Mr. Zimba said such prices would also cause a huge budget problems in future because Government would have to import maize.
He said FRA was now encouraging the private briefcase buyers to further lower the prices.
“It is a terrible thing they have done to the farmers and that means farmers will not have the appetite anymore to grow maize and we will not sink alone as farmers, we have agro dealers who gave farmers fertilisers on credit,
“You cannot announce a price which you just want to help the Ministry of Finance to balance up their budget, it is a wrong way of doing things. The whole agri-business will be affected and at the end of the day Government will not collect taxes from it,” he said.
