Millers Association Claims Of Shortages Are 'Hot Air' - ZNFU

The Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) has described claims of shortages by the Millers Association of Zambia as “hot air”.

According to MAZ President Andrew Chintala millers have run out of maize stocks and are applying for early maize from large scale farmers.

However, the ZNFU Media and Public Relations Manager Calvin Kaleyi claims that there are huge stocks available. Of the 146,510 metric tonnes available, Kaleyi claims 27,754 has been made available for early purchase by the Food Reserve Agency, which is yet to be fully taken up. According to Kaleyi the farmers have already signed contracts under the tripartite agreement but are waiting for millers to purchase the early maize.

“We regret to say that the statement issued by MAZ is misleading and simply hot air because the early maize is abundantly ready and they, together with FRA, are the ones that are stalling on the tripartite contract signing”, Kaleyi has stated.

“Suffice to say that farmers had to borrow from banks to venture into early maize production based on the push by the Ministry of Agriculture to produce this crop and ensure national food security.We are afraid that if this is the way we are going to carry on with matters of food and national food security, it will be difficult to engage farmers on similar projects in future” he continued,