REWARD FARMERS

FARMING is a serious business and those who venture into agriculture, particularly those cultivating maize expect to make a profit when they harvest. Those who are successful farmers are not those who returned to the land after retiring from formal work and settled on farms hoping to make it. It is those who made a career choice that they would be farmers and went through the mills to learn the ropes in managing a farm who eventually succeed. And with almost everyone in the agriculture sector poised to harvest the maize crop, the perennial talk of maize pricing has gripped the nation’s attention. It is obvious from the talk so far that the battle lines have been drawn over what a decent acceptable price should be. The Small-Scale Farmers Development Agency (SAFADA) says they expect Government to peg the maize floor price not below K110 during the 2019/2020 marketing as doing so will amount to robbing farmers. 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 in an interview yesterday, it would be a serious mistake if the government decided to set the maize floor price below K110. According to Mr Moobwe, 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. We hope Mr Moobwe’s organisation has submitted their proposals to the government so that unnecessary bickering is avoided. We know for a fact that the Ministry of Agriculture has started consulting the key stakeholders with a view of setting up buying prices for maize and other designated commodities for the 2019/2020 crop marketing 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 this followed the completion of the crop forecast survey and field data collection from all parts of the country. The FRA which is responsible for looking after the strategic food reserves for the country and the price that it offers farmers is often the benchmark followed by the market. Last year, there was a lot of controversy over the price of maize the FRA offered that prompted President Edgar Lungu to intervene. In last year’s marketing season, FRA in July pegged its buying price at K110 per 50-kg bag of white maize and a 50-kg bag of soya beans was fixed at K150 while a 40-kg bag of paddy rice was at K70. It was below what the farmers expected for their sweat. We recall that the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) rejected the Food Reserve Agency’s set maize price of K110 per 50-kg bag and advised farmers countrywide to look for better prices from other buyers. According to the ZNFU, a stakeholders’ meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture had recommended a price of between K130 and K140 per 50-kg bag, and not what was announced by the FRA. We trust therefore that lessons were learnt from last season’s experience and that farmers will be offered realistic prices that takes into account the costs involved. Farmers have produced a bumper harvest that guarantees food security for the nation and it is only fair that the producers are properly rewarded. When farmers are happy, then the nation would always have bumper harvests that would be a boon for the export market.