Zambian Government and ZNFU Ponder Winter Maize as country to post 2.2 million metric tonnes maize deficit

By Kalata News

Lusaka, 25/02/2024 – ZAMBIA is expected to register a deficit in the maize stock because of the rain dry spell that has affected the Southern half of the country.

To mitigate the effects little or no rains during this year’s farming season, the Zambian Government is pondering engaging local farmers to grow more maize under irrigation. This maize is popularly known as winter maize.

In a ministerial address to parliament this month, Agriculture minister Reuben Mtolo said the country had so far close to 800 thousand metric tonnes of maize stock which is expected to last the country up to June this year.

Mr. Mtolo said the country needed 3 million metric tonnes to be said the be maize food secure.

The Minister has since held private talks with the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) President Mr. Jervis Zimba and his farmers to discuss the prevailing dry spell and its effects on this year’s crop harvest.

The Minister informed ZNFU that the dry spell being experienced in the country is expected to reduce this year’s planned harvest and create a short fall in the expected crop forecast.

If that happened the country would hence be required to either import more maize from abroad or engage local farmers, who had capacity to grow maize under irrigation.

Hon. Mtolo requested the Union to undertake consultations with commercial farmers to explore the possibility of growing winter maize to supplement and meet the possible deficit. The Minister stated that so far the country needs at least three million tonnes to be food secure for twelve months and with current stocks before the new harvest, the country is food secure up to June.

“Importation of maize would take about three to four months for the imported maize to be received and this is the period that it takes for maize to be grown. Why import more maize instead of locally growing this maize?” asked the Minister.

It is yet to be seen if the Zambian farmers who were once asked to grow early maize under irrigation will agree to be partners with the Zambian Government which had failed to pay for this year’s early maize when the country had run out of maize.

Maize powder, known as mealie-meal costs in the average of K300 – K400 per 25kg bag of maize, about 20 dollars in a country were the majority live on less than one dollar per day..

The problems of the Zambian farmer against the Zambian government rang from non-payment of the 20 % promised to farmers, the existence of many middlemen who buy cheap from farmers and deny the farmer access to common crop markets in the country; and unbought maize resulting in farmers incurring losses from storage  costs.

This according the farmers, had eroded the little trust that the farmers had of the Zambian Government.

“There is also need for Government to scale up the uptake of agricultural support services among farmers and one way of doing that is to introduce an irrigation scheme for farmers,” Mr. Zimba is said to have told Minister Mtolo.

Other issues raised by the ZNFU President with the minister included the need for revision of the Water Resources Management Act, the FISP E-voucher system and why its usage is problematic for the farming community, a new development concerning introduction of four percent turnover tax on small scale farmers in tobacco through merchants were among many others.

Apart from feeding the Zambian population, Zambian maize has become a staple food in the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).