Farmers in Mpulungu have threatened to camp at the District Commissioner’s (DC) office to press government to find alternative buyers for their maize which is marooned at several depots in the district.
As efforts mount and tempers flare in pressing government to purchase the marooned maize at several depots, farmers have now threatened to camp at the office of the DC, Willie Sinfukwe saying they have suffered enough.
In separate interviews, the farmers who are stranded with hundreds of bags of maize said they had no other choice but to seriously engage government on the matter because their situation had become desperate.
Former Mpulungu District Council Chairman, Lewis Musonda who is one of the stranded farmers from Chitimbwa farming bloc, said that over 1000 of his colleagues are still stuck with maize which they have failed to sell to the Food Reserve Agency (FRA).
He said the FRA had only bought less than a quarter of maize from farmers in the area.
Mr Musonda said some farmers from villages like Musakala, Chaulu and Kapondwe are still transporting maize to Chitimbwa depot with the hope of selling it to the agency.
“Others who are more desperate have now resorted to selling their maize to briefcase businessmen who have invaded Chitimbwa farming bloc to buy maize at exploitative prices as low as, K50, 000 per 100 kilogram bag of maize,’’ he said.
Musonda said some farmers fear that they may incur more losses if their maize, currently marooned at the Chitimbwa satellite depot, gets infested with weavils and rot. He noted that the situation was making farmers desperate to dispose off the commodity even to briefcase buyers.
He appealed to government to allow local millers to purchase the maize before it goes to waste.
Meanwhile, Mr Sinfukwe said that the farmers concerns were genuine adding that government was still committed to addressing their concerns.
The DC noted that farmers in the area had heeded government’s call not to sell their produce to briefcase traders and were now concerned since FRA had only bought less than half of their produce in the district.
He appealed to government to increase the quantity of maize bought in the district in order to safeguard the farmers’ interests.
ZANIS
…..and we hear that these hunger in Zambia! Chakupapisha kwena
To be honest this is a disaster and basically another form of price control and on paper it works. You can’t set the so called floor price and go to sleep and think floor price will take care of the rest. I wonder where that MMD chap called Mr Capitalist will have to say now. He has his floor price he screemed about and suddenly farmers are now stuck with tons of maize and the people who are willing to pay their true market value are being called unscrupulous business men exploiting farmers, well lets see the FRA buy all the maize at a so called no exploitative price.
Free markets need to be let to determine the price. And Government need to create a market system that does not rely on FRA but the so called unscrupulous businessmen. These are the true drivers of free market economy.
You see the unscrupulous business man will find the market for maize and at first it might look like exploiting farmers but the demand created by these unscrupulous business me will eventually push the price up and even beyond the so called floor price. Let the farmer secure the buyer for his maize even before he goes out into the field. Let the unscrupulous business man bear the risk and not FRA and please stop this Fertiliser support nonsense, it is distorting the market and besides these FSP just ends up with MMD cadres who eventually sell it on the black market
Well said Chinondo. What i do not understand is why these farmers dont form co-ops to establish milling centers and mill and sell the finished product ?. Is there pit falls in milling comapnies ? because even if the zambian market is tight maize meal can be exported.
Yaa! Let them suffer! That is what you get when you elect bad leaders.