The Food Reserve Agency, FRA, will only purchase 32,900 x 50 Kilogramme bags of maize out of the over 112,000 bags projected production for the district.
Acting District Agriculture Coordinator, DACO, Ng’onga Musonda, confirmed this at the District Development Coordinating Committee, DDCC, held at the council chambers yesterday.
Mr Musonda said the FRA has indicated that it will only purchase 32,900 bags of maize and that over 60 per cent of the commodity will not be bought as it is not budgeted for by the agency.
He was, however, quick to note that his office is trying to look for the market for the maize that the FRA will not purchase.
And Mr Musonda explained that efforts are being made to pursue the FRA on the possibility of increasing the amount of maize to be bought from farmers in the district.
And some members of the DDCC told ZANIS in a separate interview that the decision by the agency to reduce the amount of maize it is butying from farmers, would force most farmers to sell the grain to briefcase businessmen.
And Kawambwa district still has 11,435 bags of maize that was produced in the 2007/2008 farming season.
And more than Eight thousand empty grain bags belonging to the Food Reserve Agency, FRA, valued at K14 million are missing at Solwezi FRA Depot.
North Western Police Commanding Officer, Fabian Katiba, confirmed to ZANIS that a total 8,299 empty grain bags valued at K14.4 million have been reported missing from the FRA depot.
Mr Katiba disclosed that Police has, however, received reports of suspected FRA empty grain bags being sold at a local black market.
Mr Katiba said Police were holding three FRA employees to help with investigations.
The Police chief added that one bale containing 500 empty grain bags has since been recovered from one of the suspects.
Meanwhile, FRA authorities in Solwezi said they had noticed a presence of Beige FRA printed empty grain bags on the markets in Solwezi, and they suspect they were illegally taken from the warehouse.
FRA authorities have since requested for assistance in establishing the source of bags sold on the black market.
What exactly is the FRA’s job?
What is FRA up to? Those guys are well paid and the president Mwanawasa disclosed when he visited Eastern province recently. They are among the well paid workers in the country.
LT, you are getting worse in your reporting day by day. From what district is the FRA going to by only 32,900 bags. I could not figure out the district from your first 6 paragraphs, or is it Kawambwa?
This shows lack of proper planning/forecasting on the part of the FRA. How do you budget to buy less than 30% of the crop in a district – whatever the district? Does the FRA employ any Economists (Agriculture) or Accountants (Management) to do their forecasting and projections? What is the role of the Ministry of Agriculture in all this?
eeeee amataba ati yalipeswa
Yet when farmers want to sell them ku Congo, you stop them by using some stupid mechanism. Ig government does not show people that it can be a good invester, how about the citizens? Worldwide food prices are going up, Zambia has plenty of fertile land, with unpoluted water resources. If there was good leadership, I could be seeing (1 – n) number of state farms to employ (1 – n) number of School leavers. It creates wealth, brings forex, reduces unemployment, diversifies the economy. Indeed we want to wake up one day to find all these things in place. WRONG! We buy too many cars for ministers, MPs, and so forth, pay too much for their accomodation, Phones; that is the wrong type of investment!
I hear, UGANDA is smiling because it can even export to the European market. Na kandolo fye, all the way from Uganda. We will wake up when rain patterns go craizy.
Fra has failed. namboard had a plan n usd 2 buy all the agriculture produce. wake up govt. so wat wil the peasant farmers do? this is a draw bak they bot seed n fertilizer on credit, nid 2 tak children 2 sch n there u r banyandule. am anoyd wth u. apoint kk as head of agric limbi mwalakwatako mano.
Is this how we encourage farmers to grow more maize?Fra is very myopic.
1. Logic,
” What exactly is the FRA’s job? ”
They have a website at ‘www fra org zm’ and a description of their functions:
* Administering a National Strategic Reserve
* Marketing and market facilitation
* Management of Storage Facilities
LT you need to improve at your reporting stds…I too couldnt figure out which district your report was on until I sort of guessed it was..maybe Kawambwa. Please do us a favour!!
Govt must have known that even if the role of FRA in facilitating marketing of agro products was limited, they were still dealing with people who lag in their understanding of these fancy concepts? What pipo know is that FRA should work as former Namboard did…someone should think how to strategically resolve this crisis we have found ourselves in before we start crying to the world about hunger when we are merely failing to handle obviously small issues. Is it the mixed-priorities syndrome we still suffer from?
Agricultural products come after very hard labour as most of our farmers still use traditional methods of farming.We should therefore be serious about looking after them so we can help them to another level.Gvt must take the lead to empower these farmers and not just focus on foreign investors
This is getting interesting. The FAO and other international organisations have projected that food prices will continue to be very high in the next 10 years. Surprise, Surprise this is the time the Zambian government has chosen to be incompetent! Warning to the Zambian government and Zambians….There is a shortage of grains on the world market. The USA is turning most of its maize into Biofuels. Today they are talking of close to half of the maize crop being destroyed by floods in the maize growing mid-western states. Oil poor Argentina and Brazil have stopped the export of Maize. Better to turn it into fuel. So dear Zambians where do you think you will get your maize?
In LPM, we have an example of a clearly. well-defined visionless leader with his economic hoodlums.