By Lameck Mark Banda
🇿🇲 DID ZAMBIA JUST DISCOVER THAT MAIZE HAS MOISTURE?
The Food Reserve Agency (FRA) says the delay around maize purchasing is linked to high moisture content in the grain.
Scientifically, that may make sense.
Maize intended for long-term storage must be properly dried. High moisture can lead to spoilage, mould and other storage problems.
But wait. Think, Zambia. Think.
Maize did not develop moisture for the first time in 2026.
FRA knows our agricultural calendar. It knows when maize is planted. It knows when it is harvested. It knows that freshly harvested maize may have high moisture content.
So why should moisture delay the announcement of a buying price?
Surely, announcing a price and accepting wet maize for storage are two different things.
FRA can announce the price today and still insist that only maize meeting the required moisture standard will be accepted.
So what exactly is the logic behind the delay?
This is where the matter becomes worrying, laughable and deeply questionable.
What is the motive?
Is the price a national secret?
Is there something FRA knows that the farmer must not know?
And perhaps the more uncomfortable question:
Who benefits when the farmer does not know the FRA price?
Because while FRA delays, the farmer is not living in a vacuum.
Household needs are waiting.
School requisites are waiting.
Inputs for the next farming season must be planned for.
Debts must be settled.
Eventually, desperation forces some farmers to sell.
And when farmers sell without knowing the Government’s buying price, who has the advantage?
Certainly not the farmer.
This is why Government must explain itself clearly.
I am not accusing anyone of a scheme. But Government must understand that prolonged silence creates room for suspicion.
People will naturally begin to ask whether some individuals are being given an opportunity to buy maize cheaply from desperate farmers and later sell it into a more favourable market.
Is that happening?
We need evidence before saying yes.
But why create conditions that make such questions reasonable in the first place?
Every responsible government has a duty to protect its citizens. And in an agricultural economy like ours, the small-scale farmer deserves policy certainty, market information and timely decisions.
The science of moisture explains why FRA should not store wet maize.
It still does not explain why FRA cannot announce a price.
Whatever is happening is difficult to comprehend.
How?
Why?
And for whose benefit?
FRA must explain.
Think, Zambia. Think. 🇿🇲