December 10, 2012

Zambia earns US$360 million from corn exports

As of September 2012, ZAMBIA has realised ZMK1.9 trillion (US$360 million) from corn exports.

Agriculture and Livestock Minister Emmanuel Chenda informed the House that Government was aware of the existence of counterfeit fertiliser on the market.

The Government has an intention establishing laboratory inspectorate at district and provincial levels to check on agro-dealers.

Chenda said this in Parliament on Thursday (Dec 6) evening when he presented a policy statement to lobby the House's approval of ZMK1.75 trillion (US$331 million) allocation to his ministry.

The minister said with the increased corn production and the prevailing corn deficit in the region, the country recorded increased exports of corn grain and corn products. He said more than 650,000 tonnes of corn were exported to various countries in the region.

Chenda assured that the country was food secure through the purchase of one million tonnes of corn costing ZMK2.4 trillion (US$455 million).

"During the 2012-13 farming season, Zambia was among two other countries in the region that produced a surplus of corn grain while the rest of the countries had corn deficits. The Food Reserve Agency has procured 1,042,813 tonnes of corn. Up to ZMK2.4 trillion (US$455 million) was spent on the purchase of strategic food reserves during 2012," Chenda said.

He said contracts worth ZMK826 billion (US$157 million) under the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) were awarded in September this year for the supply of 183,634 tonnes of fertiliser and a variety of seed namely corn, cotton, rice seed, groundnut and sorghum. In total, FISP had targeted to assist 900,000 small-scale farmers.

Chenda said in 2013, his ministry would prioritise crop production, productivity improvement and diversification through the scaling up of extension services. The other target areas would be livestock development, disease control and surveillance, fisheries development, and agri-business and marketing.

On FISP, the minister said this had also experienced hurdles which included poor targeting of beneficiary farmers and high administrative costs.