Bumper harvest impact unfelt – stakeholders
By Thandizo Banda
THE much-hyped bumper maize harvest has not translated into lower mealie-meal prices for consumers, the Zambia Consumer Association (ZACA) has observed.
In an interview Monday ZACA executive secretary Juba Sakala said while Zambia had experienced bumper maize harvest in the 2024/2025 farming season, the price of the staple commodity had remained high for most households.
“We expected a significant reduction to bring a 25kg bag of mealie-meal to less than K200 and not where it is pegged around K250,” Sakala said.
He, however, said ZACA was actively engaging millers on the possibility of further price reductions.
The millers were attributing their high prices for the mealie-meal to high production costs.
“Millers say in as much as we have the bumper harvest we still incurring high production and associated costs such as taxes, transport, alternative electricity, high bank interest rates and the cost of purchasing the grain from farmers,” Sakala said .
He, however, urged government to find ways of reducing the high cost of producing the country’s staple food .
“We want to appeal to government cushion the cost incurred by millers so that we can have a reasonable price and pass the benefit of the bumper harvest to consumers,” Sakala said.
And a political scientist, educationalist and entrepreneur Dr Lawrence Mwelwa says it is meaningless for the United Party for National Development (UPND) administration to continue bragging about a bumper harvest when the prices of mealie-meal are still painfully high for ordinary citizens.
“A harvest only becomes a success when it translates into affordable food on the tables of Zambians. The truth is: yes, we may have recorded big numbers, but if mealie- meal is still beyond the reach of the poor, then those statistics are empty,” Dr Mwelwa said.
He said in an interview a bumper harvest should be judged not by the tonnes recorded in government reports, but by whether a mother in Shang’ombo or a family in Kanyama could buy a 25kg bag of mealie-meal without sacrificing school fees or medicine. Anything less is political rhetoric, not progress,” he said.
Meanwhile, political scientist Dr Chris Zumani Zimba says the stubborn failure for the price of mealie-meal to drop despite witnessing a bumper harvest is clear veto statement to politicians that national realities are beyond campaign promises and political rhetoric.
“It is evident that despite Zambia having enough maize stocks, the cost of producing mealie-meal is still very high and thereby affecting the price to remain high, too,” Dr Zimba said.
Dr Zimba said the high price of mealie-meal had rendered the bumper harvest of no effect to most urban populations across the country.
“This is a clear indication that national matters are a complex process of different players and stages beyond campaign promises and political rhetoric of our politicians,” he said.
In another development, Millers Association of Zambia (MAZ) president Andrew Chintala has described the current mealie-meal prices as cost-reflective.
“When you look at the current maize production vis-a-vis the mealie-meal prices on the market you have to consider what the millers are paying, what the traders are paying and so on. Firstly, you need to look at the biggest input in the production cost, which is the maize itself, cost of electricity where in some instances millers use generators to support production due to load shedding and other costs of course,” Chintala said.
Minister of Defence Ambrose Lufuma has told The Mast government wants to ensure mealie-meal prices are reduced to affordable levels.
“But until we factor in the cost of production being incurred by the millers, we cannot state how much the reduction would be. You will however remember during the crunch, government demonstrated its commitment to ensure prices of Zambia National Service (ZNS) and Kalonga Milling brands were made affordable to citizens,” Lufuma said.
