For cheaper mealie meal, grow your own maize, Mumbi Phiri advises
FORMER PATRIOTIC Front-PF Deputy Secretary General Mumbi Phiri has advised Zambians to take advantage of the rainy season and venture into maize farming for cheaper mealie meal.
Phiri says those that want cheaper mealie meal should seize the moment and plant maize which they later can mill on their own.
“Safety kuli sunga wemwine, namumona ubu ubuteko epo butupisishe, so infula iyi yayamba ukuloka; to make your life cheaper, at least grow your own maize, and grind your own mealie meal,” Phiri advises.
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Very sound advice from Mrs. Mumbi Phiri. When Mr. Lungu assumed power in 2015, I started growing maize purely for domestic consumption. This year I am not growing maize because I have enough stocks to see me through to the next harvest. I pay K20 for 25Kg at the hammer mill. It doesnt bother me if mealie meal prices hit K450 for a 25Kg bag.
On my residential plot, I grow enough beans and groundnuts to last me a year in addition to kalembula, sweet potato, cassava and over ten varieties of fruit (paw, mango, guava, lemon, banana, avocado, pomegranate, apples, granadilla, mulberries, etc).
No one is interested to supply cheap mealie meal in town while you are just sited in town no after all even in town it is raining.
E kulanda uku, thank you Madame for your good and timely advice. Whether opposition or ruling, we are all Zambians and we are all working for Zambia. With this spirit we can develop our country easily and faster.
And to my fellow Zambians, don’t cry for cheap mealie meal when you can’t grow any maize? No one will grow and bring it to you.
Nomba ine wikala “Kwa”, where there’s no land where do I plant maize to feed my 10 children mwebekala chalo?
Bare land very plenty you can go central province moreover you came from village don’t pretend
Do you ACTUALLY have a maize field yourself, Sir, or it is the usual wasteful social media posting? Many Zambians are trapped in crammed shanty and high density townships and Kabwata-type Flats where there is no land. That is all they were born into and will die in there. And this senseless reasoning about plenty of land in rural areas for people to go to is a an “empty Myth”, people are not wild animals who you can just damp in the middle of a forest with amenities and tell them to grow maize. Let us be real and not be glossing over real problems faced by our fellow Citizens. By the way, I know what I am talking about because I came from a village (the first 15 years of my life I was a villager and I am still one), not like some people who pretend.
This sentiment should’ve been promoted by all succesive governments as it shouldn’t be government business to provide the staple food cheaply to homes! The arguments seeing bad light in what Ms. Phiri takes as pragmatic approach are those who don’t appreciate the efforts of those growing the crops for they want to enjoy the produce cheaply! Who for instance resides in Kabwata highrise flats and doesn’t know that a village of their origins exists and so do relatives who own land? If one can’t find free land why not support relatives to grow more by augmenting them in farming inputs and share the produce! Ms. Phiri may not be among my favored political figures but on this one she’s struck a positive non partisan stance that every right thinking person must embrace wholeheartedly! Zambians must be fighting for how costs associated with agricultural production could be affordable for produce maximization! Well done Madam Mumbi Phiri as your sentiments here defines practicality!