‘DON’T PEG MAIZE PRICE BELOW K110’

WE expect Government to peg the maize floor price not below K110 during the 2019/2020 marketing as doing so will amount to robbing farmers, says the Small-Scale Farmers Development Agency (SAFADA).

SAFADA executive director Boyd Moobwe said in as much as the country had recorded a bumper harvest, the price of the commodity could not be pegged below K110.

Mr Moobwe said farmers across the country had undergone challenges for them to produce more this year and a lucrative price was needed to appreciate them.

He said in an interview yesterday, it would be a serious mistake if the government decided to set the maize floor price below K110.

Mr Moobwe said it was expected that a bag of fertiliser would rise by 50 percent next season, therefore, setting maize floor price to less than K110 would be a drop in the ocean.

The farmer, he added, would be subjected to abject poverty because they will not have anything meaningful to sustain their lives and farming activities in the next farming season.

Recently, Minister of Agriculture Michael Katambo told the Daily Nation that Government was likely to announce the price at which the Food Reserve Agency FRA would be buying maize from farmers this month.

Mr Katambo said the announcement would be made soon after the crop forecast for 2020/2021 was concluded.

Mr Katambo said once the forecast was done, the government through his ministry would announce FRA’s buying price for the produce in this crop marketing season.

In last year’s marketing season, FRA in July pegged its buying price at K110 per 50 kilogramme bag of white maize and a 50 kilogramme bag of soya beans was fixed at K150 while a 40kilogramme bag of paddy rice was at K70.