Maize consumption per year for Zambia is over 2.4m tons
– Zambia consumed about 2.4m tons of maize in 2021/2022, this is two years ago.
– For 2023/2024, consumption is expected to be even higher due to population and industrial consumption growth, but a drought has struck
– About 43% to 50% of the maize fields are destroyed, this has been confirmed and a ministerial statement delivered
– Over 90% of maize production in Zambia is by local small scale farmers who are the hardest hit by drought
– If the ZNS led task force comes up with 15k tons contribution, it’s a drop in the ocean to fill the gap. The question is are we serious?
– If FRA has serious stocks of maize, why are queues growing bigger and bigger by the day, why is the market not being flooded with Maize?
– You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that at a macro level, Zambia needs to come up with plans to contribute serious numbers to cover the gap or deficit which is in millions of tons of maize
Much as l agree that their was some lack of foresight on the part of government to sale some of our maize, it should be agreed that predicting the future is a preserve of the anointed and in this case government may have assumed the future which they had no control of. However to condemn the projected winter maize droplet harvest is also not in order because to everything their is a beggining, in English They say Rome was not built in a day. However this should be a learning point for government to learn to listen even to those you do not agree with politically. It is embarrassing to sale what you have and the turn around to declare a disaster. A bird in hand is better than two in the bush not the other way round
So you want FRA to offload maize at cheaper price. Those queues are chasing cheaper ZNS mealiemeal.the fact is that FRA has sufficient maize. Millers are buying same maize at K330 by 50kg bag. People are just used to cheap things. Prices are however never constant and this is the status the gullible want to continue.
This Upnd government is full of jokers! Now the terms of reference for the Zambia Army and Zambia Air Force have changed, from protecting the country to agricultural production. Even ZNS is not supposed to be in full time agricultural production! This is just a recipe for high level corruption. After change of government senior officers in Zambia Army, ZAF, ZNS, Correctional Services will be implicated in various cases of corruption because of this full scale agricultural production! The government has failed to incentives small scale farmers so that they produce more food! It’s total chaos in the agricultural sector.
Rightly ZAF and the Army that is not their main task. But What do those people wearing Uniform eat? Remember that within these strucrures not everyone is an infantry person. The armed forces have various operational departments and to be sustainable why not grow food themsleves. If there is an exces, sell it.
The corrctional and ZNS aside from feeding themselves. Prisions have a task of reforming inmates. Agruculture is but one of those aspects. ZNS, bwana.. if you were there when we had compulsary ZNS after form 5, you will know that aside from the Military training there was the agrian training. So bane….ma statement uya