Civil society groups laud new maize price announced by government

The upwards revision of the price of maize is an advantage to the farmers, looking at the previous season where they faced lot of challenges such as floods and inputs, says Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS) Zambia.

The Food Reserve Agency (FRA) had announced that it projects to buy 500,000 tonnes of maize at K280 per kilogramme bag, which is an increase from last season’s offer of K180.

Commenting on this development, CUTS Zambia Consumer Welfare Officer, Victor Sikombe, in an interview on Wednesday said this move would encourage more farmers to increase their output of the crop.

“As CUTS we are happy that government has decided to increase on the price of maize because the year has been difficult for farmers such as the issue of floods which affected production.

“With this, we expect a lot of farmers in the 2023/2024 farming season to come on boarder to produce maize. They will have an opportunity to cultivate at a larger scale,” Sikombe said.

He however, urged government to subsidise production of mealie meal so that it did not have any impact on the commodity.

Sikombe also said maintaining the price of paddy rice at K200 per 40 kilogramme bag would enable more people afford to buy the commodity.

He said there was need to also consider diversifying from nsima to focus on other foods which could be consumed.

In a separate interview, Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) executive director, Faides TembaTemba, welcomed the development and hopes it will help cover the cost incurred by farmers during production.

TembaTemba urged government to pay farmers on time for their commodity.

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