FINISH BUYING MAIZE FOR PRICES TO RISE, FRA TOLD

Wed, 06 Sep 2017 13:39:56 +0000

By Chite Mtonga

THE Food Reserve Agency (FRA) should conclude buying maize from farmers if market prices of the crop are to go up, says Economic Association of Zambia (EAZ) board member Phillipe Masengo.

Mr Masengo told the Daily Nation in an interview that FRA should quickly finish buying maize from farmers if prices of the commodity were to go up.

He said FRA buys maize for food security and its current buying price was not influenced by market forces.  

“FRA buys maize for food security in the country, so the agency does not consider how much the farmer puts in or how much maize we have on the market, individuals just set the buying prices, what they should do is to announce that they have concluded buying maize from farmers so that farmers can sell their maize somewhere else at a higher price.

“Yes, inflation has come down and the price of buying mealie meal has also reduced but the price of maize is too low for the farmers to survive. I believe the prices should slightly go up so that we strike a balance,” Mr Masengo said.

He said that if farmers decided to store their maize, the price would eventually go up as there would be a shortage of the commodity on the market and prices of mealie meal would increase.

Mr. Masengo said that an increase in the prices of maize would be good for the farmers but would be a tragedy to the economy and livelihoods of most Zambians.

“If farmers hold on to maize for a long time, prices would go as high as K140 for a 50kg bag of maize. Yes, this will be good for the farmer but it would have an adverse impact on the economy, mealie meal prices will go up because millers would be buying maize at a high price.

“What should be understood, however, is that storage is also expensive for majority of farmers to manage so it is also likely that the maize can go to waste if farmers try to hold on to it for a long time.

“The better evil is for FRA to quickly announce that they have finished buying maize to allow farmers to sell their maize at a slightly higher amount,” Mr Masengo said.