‘FARMERS DETERMINED TO STOP IMPORTS’
FARMERS are determined to grow winter maize whenever Government is ready to offer support, Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) president Jervis Zimba.
Mr Zimba said issues of import maize should come to an end because Zambian farmers were capable of producing enough.
He said this at the harvest of early maize at Lilayi farm yesterday “The whole idea now is to build capacity to between 300, 000 to 400,000 metric tonnes of early maize. Once grown, this maize will be exported and if Government needs it at any given time, there will be no need to import since we will have it.
“Issues of importing maize into this country are over. All we need to do is to build capacity. The export market is there in the DRC for both mealie
meal and maize and so, there will be no problem with the market,” Mr. Zimba said.
Mr Zimba thanked Government for believing in the farmers’ ability to grow early maize and paid tribute to the 100 farmers ventured into early maize production.
And minister of Agriculture Michael Katambo said commercial farmers had produced huge quantities of maize from the early crop from which millers could buy so that mealie meal prices could be affordable.
Speaking when he officiated at the harvest, Mr. Katambo said his ministry would ensure that commercial farmers who produced early maize were linked to millers so that they could produce affordable mealie meal.
“With the contract from the Food Reserve Agency (FRA), where the agency will engage the millers through ZNFU who will be buying these huge quantities of maize from these commercial farmers, FRA can subsides those millers so that mealie meal prices can be affordable,” Mr. Katambo said.
He said the role of his ministry was to ensure food security.
And farm owner Alan Miller, said he intended to plant 250 hectares of maize but only ended up with 115 because of power outages which characterized the country towards the end of last year.