Zambia Government Threatens Middlemen Buying Farmers’ Maize At Low Prices

The Zambian government has warned that it will take stern action against middlemen buying maize from peasant farmers across the country at exploitative prices. Agriculture minister Sarah Sayifwanda said on Saturday that it was disheartening to note that middlemen have invaded rural areas to buy the crop from peasant farmers at very low prices.

She expressed dismay that on a recent tour to one rural part of the country she discovered that middlemen had arrived in the district and were exchanging maize from the farmers for various commodities.

She said however that the prices of those commodities which included clothing items were far less than the floor price of a 50 kilogram bag of maize.

The Food Reserve Agency (FRA) which is the country’s grain marketing organization recently announced a floor price of K45,000 ( 12 US dollars) for a 50 kilogram bag of maize which has been welcomed as fair by commercial farmers.

The Agriculture minister said however that the middlemen were using different items to barter with the peasant farmers who are losing out on the market value for their crop.

She observed that the practice was a threat to the country’s attainment of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on agriculture because farming should be contributing to reducing poverty among the rural population.

Source African Press Agency

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