The Food Reserve Agency (FRA) has exported 442,294 metric tonnes of maize valued at over 70 million US Dollars to countries within the SADC and COMESA regions, representing 49 percent of the total sales.
FRA Executive Director David Matongo in s statement released to QFM says the export countries include Zimbabwe with 29.09 percent, South Africa with 10.39 percent, Congo DR with 3.97 percent and Kenya with 1.64 percent.
Mr Matongo names other countries as Namibia with 1.26 percent, Mozambique with 0.99 percent, Burundi with 0.85 percent, and Rwanda with 0.50 percent.
He says the Agency further exported maize to Botswana with 0.20 percent, Madagascar with 0.08 percent and Malawi with 0.04 percent.
He adds that FRA also sold 460,492 metric tonnes of maize valued at over 68 million US Dollars to millers, stock feed manufacturers, the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) under the office of the Vice President and local communities in rural areas, representing 51 percent of the total sales.
Mr Matongo says the Agency has set aside 600,000 metric tonnes of maize as a buffer stock for strategic reserves by the beginning of the next Crop Marketing season.
He says this follows maize sales of 902,492 metric tonnes on both the local and international markets as at 31st March, 2012.
Last October, Government instructed the FRA to sale 1,067,000 metric tonnes of maize to avoid wastage of the crop.
With a population of about 13 million people, Zambia has a monthly consumption rate of 80,000 metric tonnes.
Mr Matongo explains that this means that the strategic reserve of 600,000 metric tonnes is more than sufficient to meet the country’s food requirements for at least seven months.
[QFM]
Interesting stats – would have been better if we could know how this compares to previous years, i.e. are we selling more or less than the previous years, etc.
Also, it would be nice to know what FRA does with the money. From what I hear, we have no means of keeping the food from wasting (as written above), can FRA invest in some silos and other preservation methods?
I also saw this article on the news last night and was appalled to see a sweaty man packing maize in FRA bags with his hands and women sewing the bags closed by hand. In this day and age and with such money, can’t FRA buy a grain packaging machine?
It would also be interesting to see a breakdown of these sales by country in the region. FRA should as a matter of urgency this year embark on construction of more storage sheds.
Wow! Thanks for these pictures and for the note! It’s hard to beleive that some people don’t have clean water to drink there is something very wrong about that! So glad the borehole is working!!
Good job. Build proper storage facilities around the country from some of that money
Now pay the farmers and buy the farming inputs and start distributing asap before August.One simple advise when farmers bring the products to you the same day give them input required so that as they go home they carrying with them the farming inputs in advance.
Bit off subject but I was just sicannng the net looking for a local POSE coach and I ended up on the results page of a recent local 10k race yesterdays main site WOD was a 10k run and the times for this *WORKOUT* averaged UNDER 50 minutes .winners time in the *RACE* .52:28..hmm,maybe Brian’s onto something with this CFE stuff
$234,647,920 is what should have been raise from the maize sales. and not the total of $138,000,000 that has been raised. FRA is making a loss of behalf of the nation. They buy from the farmer at about $200 per ton and incur other costs in the process of storage but they then sale that maize at $170 dollars per ton. Does that make economic sense? We need to removepolitics from the operations of FRA.Â
Raise the standards of food handling,transportation and storage which are very poor and in many cases downright risky in Zambia.It is amazing that we hear of few food borne diseases considering the very poor food safety standards in zambia.We’re also lucky that our food export markets of eastern and southern africa don’t have stringent food safety standards like those of the EU or USA otherwise all those export volumes we’re proud of would be zilch,nada,zero.
Banda worked and you are busy selling. Let us wait and see how your production will be and how many tonnes you will sell. permanent fools.
Con? If plastic is used as the martieal, there could be a problem as it does not allow the skin to “breathe”. Maybe allow perforations at regular intervals spreading out on the cast? Something to think about.
Thinker you are actually not thinking properly. Banda is the one who started selling and the PF have not stopped what Banda started. Start thinking before you show your ignorance and stupidity on here. It is  Banda’s who started the wasting of our resources and now this government is trying to stop that?Â
Can FRA also pay us our money please?
if i may ask are they paying cash or it’s nkongole
Is this paper maize? Please pay the farmers in Petauke District and else where for last years crops and look after your maize better once you have bought it. It least put a tarp over it before it rains.
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