Minister of Labour and Social security Brenda Tambatamba has directed the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) in Kasempa district to heighten its outreach programmes to enhance the maize buying exercise.
Ms Tambatamba says the FRA must heighten its maize buying exercise through engagement in extension and outreach programmes to ensure that the district is food secure.
She said this during the Disaster Mitigation and Management Unit district meeting in Kasempa district yesterday.
“We are in an emergency, we are not going to buy like any other year which was normal here it’s dash and run and do everything possible,” Ms Tambatamba added.
She further explained that there is need for FRA to combine the maize buying exercise with the outreach programme for their buying target to be met.
“You are buying there while you have got other people reaching out to the farmers because you know that their is stiff competition,” Ms Tambatamba added.
She urged FRA buyers to become more aggressive and be mobile as they conduct the maize buying exercise to ensure that enough grain has been bought.
And , District Administrative Officer Francis Makanga assured the Minister that the district administration office and FRA had put some measures to ensure the district was food secure.
“Like mechanisation is already there in far flung areas we have asked farmers to group themselves then we take mobile scales to be purchasing from there,” Mr Makanga said.
He disclosed that his office had written to the provincial permanent secretary to enable FRA to start buying maize on cash basis.
He was confident that FRA had put in place mechanisms which would ensure that they meet the target as a result making the district food secure.
Meanwhile, The Food Reserve Agency FRA has announced that it will soon commence the sale of maize under the Community Sales Programme in smaller packages in order to accommodate selected vulnerable households who cannot otherwise afford the 50KG bags.
The Agency has since commenced the packaging of maize into 25kg and 1kg bags to be sold at K165 and K66 respectively
The initiative is targeting households in the 84 drought affected Districts and complimenting governments safety net programmes such as the Social Cash Transfer programme .
In a press statement released today, FRA Public Relations Coordinator John Chipandwe expressed optimism that the initiative will give the targeted households options of packages to choose from when considering to buy the commodity.
In some areas, millers and grain traders are buying maize at as much as K500 per 50kg bag and they’re paying cash on the spot. This becomes very attractive to farmers. Whenever millers and grain traders buy maize at a price higher than the FRA it means the stocks are few. The few people that are taking their maize to FRA are those that have been told that they might not benefit from FISP if they don’t sale to the agency. So even this year FRA won’t be able to meet its target. It’s good that Brenda Tambatamba has taken the lead because Mtolo Phiri is now completely lost
True. Each time I go to pick a bag for consumption, I take a few more to sell to this miller who has camped by our road. I get a good deal enough to see me through.
I was also about to ask under which ministry does FRA fall.
FRA is a nonsense at the end of a season nothing balances on the books
FRA is an organization that was set up by people that do not mean well for the farmers. I get surprised why New Dawn Government is not thinking about restructuring the maize and food procurement system.
The New Dawn GRZ is now Old Dawn GRZ
One can see they have lost direction
HH is an Excellent businessman but he is turning out to be a poor president
It is almost time to look at another option