SELL YOUR MAIZE TO ANYONE
…It’ll be criminal to force farmers to only sell to FRA, says GTAZ
By Tony Nkhoma
SELL your maize to the highest bidders because it’s an open market, the Grain Traders Association of Zambia (GTAZ) has advised farmers.
GTAZ spokesperson Yotam Mkandawire said it would be criminal to compel farmers to only sell their maize to the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) when the open market offered higher prices.
On Tuesday, government announced K340 as the floor price for maize during this crop marketing season, K10 higher than last year’s K330.
Mkandawire told The Mast in an interview that farmers were free to offload their maize to anyone offering a higher price than that set by the FRA.
“You see, this is a liberalised market. So, the price that the FRA has offered is their price. It’s not, what I would call it, a monopolised price,”
Mkandawire said.
He said the profit margins in the maize business were very small.
Farmers should therefore aim at selling their produce at a higher price to get some reward for their labour.
“I mean traders, whoever is a buyer, are free to offer more than what FRA has offered. I mean, this is a liberalised market. FRA or government, do not tell anyone ‘don’t buy your maize at this price, and buy your maize at that price’. I don’t think they’ll be able to do that. That will be defeating the chemists of a liberalised market and things like that,” Mkandawire said.
He said there was nothing wrong with farmers offering their maize to the highest market that would come forth.
“It is okay. If someone can buy, they can outbid FRA, they can offer more than FRA, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that because at the end of the day what we want to see is that the farmer receives a good price for their maize,” Mkandawire said.
He said his association was looking forward to ensuring that farmers made more profit so that they could plant more in the next farming season.
“That’s what we are all looking for. We are looking at the farmer receiving a good price, the farmer being encouraged to even plant more next season. What would be so criminal is basically to leave a price that is good and go to a price which is bad,” Mkandawire said
He, however, urged farmers to only sell the excess from their harvest and leave some for consumption.
“Excess, what we mean is after removing whatever they used for home consumption, then paying off whatever was supposed to be paid, then excess they should be able to sell because at that time they’ve already secured their own consumption,” Mkandawire said.
