Wed, 06 Sep 2017 13:16:09 +0000
By Andrew Mukoma
THE Food Reserve Agency (FRA) in Southern Province – Region B has so far spent K998, 400 to pay out small scale farmers who have supplied it with maize in Monze.
This is out of the 74,167 bags of white maize which FRA has bought from the targeted total of 90,000 bags.
Southern Province Region ‘B’ Marketing Coordinator Stephen Liato has disclosed that there was overwhelming response from farmers wanting to sell their commodity to FRA.
He told the Daily Nation that the agency was making very good progress in the maize buying exercise which started in August, saying the Agency expects to meet the target of 90,000 bags any day before end of this week.
“So far the Agency has bought 74,167 bags of maize which is 3,708.35 metric tonnes and we have also paid out a total of K998, 400 to the farmers who supplied the commodity.
“From the onset, we have continued to receive overwhelming response from small scale farmers wanting to sale their maize,” he said.
“We are hopeful that before the end of this week, we are most likely to meet our target of purchasing 90,000 bags of maize from farmers in Monze District. We are also hopeful that government will release the remaining funds so that we can payout the remaining farmers,” Mr Liato added.
The Agency in Monze District is operating in 9 satellite depots spread across namely Nteme, Nampeyo, Njoola, Milele, Chipembele, Keemba, Katimba, Hapande, and Bweengwa.
And according to the department of agriculture, Monze District produced more than 87,466 metric tonnes of white Maize during the 2016/2017 farming season.
