MAIZE FLOW PRICE FOR THE 2025 MARKETING SEASON A JOKE
…if you consider the amount of labour and cost of fertilizer, says KASHINGA
MUFULIRA… Tuesday June 3, 2025 — Socialist Party (SP) Vice Provincial Chairperson for Copperbelt Reagan Kashinga has criticized the maize flow price for the 2025 crop marketing programme announced by the Food Reserve Agency (FRA).
FRA, earlier today, revealed that it would be buying a 50 kg bag of maize at K340, showing an increase by K10 from last year’s price.
Mr. Kashinga said the announced maize flow price is a joke considering the amount of labour put in by farmers and the cost of fertiliser.
“We wish to reject the maize flow price for the 2025 marketing season announced by the Food Reserve Agency (FRA). FRA says it will be buying 50 kg maize at K340, showing a slight increase of K10 from last year’s price. The announced maize flow price is a joke if you consider the amount of labour and cost of fertiliser. We wish to state that the struggling small scale farmers won’t reasonably benefit from maize they have been growing at a higher cost,” he reacted.
Mr. Kashinga has asked FRA to consider revisiting the maize flow price announced.
“Our farmers needed to be rewarded for their efforts with a competitive maize flow price. Most of these farmers never fully benefited from the Government supported farmer input support programme. Today, the Government can even boast a bumper harvest when most of our farmers were neglected as they shared fertiliser in small packages known as medas.
“Some of these farmers resorted to using chicken manure just to have better yields this season and thanks to God for the good rains otherwise we were going to have another disastrous farming season.We ask FRA to consider revisiting the maize flow price announced on Tuesday, 3rd June, 2025. We expected FRA to buy at least 50 kg at K400,” Mr. Kashinga said.
He further challenged FRA to start buying crops cash.
“We also call on the Government through FRA to buy maize on a cash basis. Some farmers resort to selling maize to private buyers because FRA takes a long time to pay farmers. The Socialist Party wants FRA to pay farmers immediately if they buy maize. We also demand that FRA increases the number of satellite depots for maize procurement. We are aware that many farmers move long distances to access FRA depots when selling their maize,” Mr Kashinga said.
Kashinga is the butt of the joke. At what price are millers buying maize now for them to reduce the price of mealie meal?
Just that alone should make one think and shut up.
The problem is some people are round and fat from telling lies. Is Kashinga a farmer? It doesnt take a donkey for one to realise that based on the current output, the margins at that price are still high.
Ba politican bamu Zambia nchito kubwata bwata empela…meanwhile they are round and fat from telling lies instead of working for the poor.
We know that some of these people have been pushing for higher floor price of maize so that the price of mealie meal can go up and then turn around and blame this government that it has failed to reduce the price of mealie meal. They should learn to serve the people other than playing political gymnastics