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Socialist Party President in Zambia, Dr Fred M’membe, has raised concerns about the state of the country’s strategic reserves, particularly those for maize. He also stressed the need for achieving food security in the country.
Dr M’membe explained that when business is disrupted by unplanned incidents, strategic reserves are used to minimize, not eliminate, the negative impact on the affected markets while actions are being undertaken to restore the status quo. He noted that some critical reserves held in Zambia include fuel, foreign exchange reserves, and maize reserves.
According to Dr M’membe, the government buys strategic maize reserves during the maize marketing season. These are held by the Food Reserve Agency (FRA). In the past, the government bought 500,000 metric tonnes of maize of the total maize production of 3.6 million metric tonnes in 2020, which translated to less than 20 percent of total production at FRA dictated price per tonne. The private sector, including milling companies for the production of stock feed, maize meal, and other products, absorbs the 80 percent remainder of the production at prices dictated by the market, which is often higher than the FRA price, including export prices.
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He criticized the government’s recent release of maize from the FRA reserves and called it a fallacy to assume that this could bring down prices. Thi
