Minister assures food security

MINISTER of Agriculture Reuben Mutolo says the current dry spell being experienced in the country does not entirely spell doom as Zambia has close to a million metric tons of maize and the number is set to increase once early maize from commercial farmers comes on stream by next month.
Mr Mutolo told journalists yesterday that citizens should not panic in terms of the country’s maize stock position.
“We will have some early maize from commercial farmers and the first thing we will do is to slow down the issue of exporting the maize,” he said. “We will hold the maize in our storage facilities so that we see what crop [harvest] we will have from the rain-fed maize, especially in the parts of the country where we are having good rains.”
The minister said close to 150,000 or slightly more metric tons of early maize is anticipated to be offloaded by commercial farmers by next month.
Mr Mutolo said from the time Government curtailed maize exports, there is only one country that has been receiving a very small remainder of stock that it bought from Zambia last year.
“In the next week or so it should be over,” he said. “So there will be no more exports of maize from Zambia up until we ascertain the availability of maize in the country.
“We have, as we speak, in excess of 300,000 metric tons with the [Food Reserve] Agency.
We have in excess of 300,000 metric tons of maize with millers and [grain] traders.”
He indicated that as at last week, there were close to one million metric tons of maize in the country.
“Roughly, we have about 800,000 metric tons,” he said.
“It will be Zambia first. We are not going to get excited to export maize. What we are going through is not like we didn’t totally expect it; it is something that people in the Meteorological Department guided us and gave us a warning.”..