Zambian agency orders maize exports
by Own Corespondent
Thursday 22 July 2010
JOHANNESBURG — Zambia’s grain agency said on Wednesday that it has started releasing surplus maize to local traders for export to needy countries among them Zimbabwe.
The Food Reserve Agency (FRA) said it would initially sell 160,569 tonnes of white maize carried over from 2008/2009 crop season in a move to keep domestic prices high after another bumper harvest this year.
“The exports will enable the agency to create space for the 2010 crop and ensure that production is sustained by preventing prices from collapsing as a result of the bumper harvest,” FRA executive director Anthony Mwanaumo said in a statement.
Mwanaumo said the FRA would ensure all maize released would be sold outside Zambia to avoid flooding the local market causing price distortions.
Once a net food importer, Zambia has seen maize production rise in recent seasons, a trend partly attributed to former Zimbabwean white commercial farmers who have helped boost agricultural production after relocating to the country following their expulsion from Zimbabwe by President Robert Mugabe.
Maize production from the 2009/2010 season reached 2.7 million tones to leave Zambia holding a surplus of 1.1 million of maize. The country, which produced 1.9 million tonnes in the 2008/2009 season, requires about 1.6 million tonnes of maize per year.
Lusaka has in previous seasons exported maize to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and Angola, countries where the grain, just as in Zambia, is also a key staple food.
Several Zambian exporters have said they will target exports mainly to Zimbabwe, after Harare announced another poor harvest this year.
Once a net food exporter Zimbabwe has faced food shortages since Mugabe’s controversial land reform programme that he launched in 2000 and which has seen agricultural output plummet because the government failed to provide blacks resettled on former white farms with inputs and skills training to maintain production.
A unity government formed the veteran President formed with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai last year is pushing to revive the economy although it has to date failed to ensure law and order in the mainstay agricultural sector where mobs of supporters of Mugabe’s ZANU PF party continue harassing the few remaining white commercial farmers. – ZimOnline.