By Brightwell Chabusha
Leader of the opposition Golden Party of Zambia (GPZ) Jackson Silavwe has urged government to revise the export of maise downwards due to reduction in the production of the commodity.
Zambia’s maize production has dropped to 2.7 million tonnes in the 2021/2022 crop season from 3.6 million tonnes in the 2020/2021 farming season, a marginal drop of 25%.
Silavwe said some of the causes of the reduction in maize production are late delivery of farming inputs, late payment of small scale farmers by FRA/Government, high prices of faming inputs such as fertilizer and politicization of farming inputs delivery by the Ministry of Agriculture.
He said other are causes are lack of a national agricultural plan by the new dawn administration, heavy Government bureaucracy at the ministry of agriculture and unpredictable rain fall pattern.
Meanwhile, Silavwe called on government to put in place clear intervention measures aimed at ensuring stability of mealie meal prices and the country remaining food secure.
“We request the New Dawn Administration to consider the following proposals; a. Review downwards the amount of maize exports from approximately 1.2 million metric tonnes to 600 thousand metric tonnes. b. Develop a master plan to ensure agriculture because the lead economic sector,” he said.
“c. Start local high quality start ups by Zambians in the agriculture sector to the tune of USD $250 million. d. Government should direct all constituencies to buy a tractor from the CDF allocation for small scale farmers. e. Capitalise the Zambia National Service (ZNS) to commence all year round farming and progressively roll out the program to local small scale farmers country wide. f. Address all the challenges in the 2021/22 farming season before the onset of the 2022/23 season.”
Silavwe said the late Dr. Kenneth Kaunda once said “A Nation that cannot adequately feed itself is an embarrassment to itself” adding that it is the duty of the New Dawn Government to ensure it’s population is food secure.