Reduce prices for farming inputs - UPND

By EMMANUEL CHIBULU LUAPULA Province United Party for National Development (UPND) chairman Besa Chimbaka has called on the government to consider reducing prices of farming inputs following lowered prices of white maize during the current crop marketing season.

In an interview, Mr. Chimbaka, who is also former Bahati Member of Parliament said, failure by the government to reduce prices of farming inputs will adversely affect crop production during the 2017/2018 farming season as most farmers will not afford to buy the commodities.

“If anything, this is the first thing Government should have done, to reduce the prices of inputs before reducing prices of maize’’ Mr. Chimbaka said.

He noted that, by reducing the price of a 50-kg bag of white maize from K85.00 last year to K60.00 this year, means that farmers will incur losses and therefore unable to meet cost of inputs whose prices have not been reduced.

And Mr. Chimbaka has said, despite lowered prices of maize, most citizens have continued to starve because the cost of mealie meal has remained relatively high. He anticipated the situation to grow worse towards the end of the year when much of the maize will be bought by the Congolese who will take advantage of the low prices.

“Much of the maize you see now will not be there as we approach the end of the year. Most of it will be bought by our neighbours the Congolese who will take advantage of low prices to buy the commodity in bulk. This will force the price of mealie meal to remain high and therefore unaffordable by most citizens’’ Mr. Chimbaka

Meanwhile, Mr. Chimbaka has bemoaned high prices of most essential commodities in the country despite the Kwacha appreciating against the US dollar. He explained that, in most countries, as soon as the local currency appreciates, there is an immediate effect on prices of commodities, they are lowered. “This is not what we are experiencing in our country’’ he lamented.