Wed, 14 Jun 2017 10:02:14 +0000
By BENNIE MUNDANDO
PRESIDENT Edgar Lungu says the importation and smuggling of edible oils into the country has had a devastating impact on the soya bean market and that loopholes must be sealed to
protect local farmers.
The President said in Mkushi yesterday that there has been too much liberalisation in the importation of edible oils and that the smuggling of the commodity into the country has had devastating effects on local soya bean farmers and that government and stakeholders needed to devise ways of sealing all the loopholes to protect the local market.
And President Lungu has maintained that he would ensure that Zambia becomes Africa’s food basket before he leaves office by ensuring that responsive policies in the agriculture sector were put in place to help the country actualise its potential unlike the current situation where farmers were producing at only five percent of their capability.
Speaking when he addressed, small scale, emerging and commercial farmers during his tour of farmers and agro-dealers in the Mkushi farming block yesterday, President Lungu said he had only learnt about the unfortunate situation in the country where soya beans farmers were at the mercy of buyers due to unfair competition the Zambian edible oil manufacturers were facing.
An influx of smuggled oils from other countries selling at give-away prices had disadvantaged local farmers whose businesses have suffered irreparable damage,” he said.
He said it was unacceptable that a kilogram of soya beans which was costing around K5 last year was now going at K2 due to the unfair competition from other countries. He assured farmers that Government would come up with measures to rectify the situation which he said was unfortunate and needed urgent remedial action.
He likened the situation to what happened in 2011 among cotton farmers when the prices of the commodity nose-dived from what was obtaining the previous year.
The President observed that while some of the challenges facing the agriculture sector were as a result of global marketing trends, too much liberalisation was one of the negative trends which had suffocated the local market.
“I have made agriculture my first priority and I want to make sure by the time I leave office, Zambia becomes Africa’s food basket. Zambia has a lot of potential to achieve this because currently, we are only producing at about five percent.
“I know there are people who are accusing us of being biased towards small scale farmers but I want to tell you that this is not an oversight but deliberate because we want small scale farmers to grow and become large scale farmers. We want to produce more because when we produce more, we are all happy but when we fail to produce, the buck stops at State House,” he said.
Speaking earlier, ZNFU president Jervis Zimba thanked President Lungu for taking a new approach in identifying the challenges that farmers were facing by stepping out of his comfort zone to have firsthand information on what was obtaining on the ground rather than depending on debriefs from government officials.
