THE desire to sell maize beyond the national borders stems much more from greed and can spark a shortage and sharp rise in the price of the staple food.For now, the export ban of maize and mealie meal still subsists to guarantee national food security and ensure the prices of mealie meal are within affordable levels.With the ban in force, some greedy “traders” are buying the grain from small-scale farmers around the country with an illicit aim of selling the commodity across the border; this is greed of the highest order.It will be important to put issues into context through a simple analysis of maize production figures for this year.Zambia has this year produced about 3.4 million tonnes of maize, the second largest output on record and 65 percent above the level in 2019 of 2, 004, 389 tonnes.Out of the total output, the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) has been tasked to buy one million […]
CLIP SMUGGLERS
