FARMERS MUST GUARD AGAINST BRIEFCASE GRAIN BUYERS
Dear Editor,
ZAMBIA has during the 2023/ 2024 farming season recorded a deficit of 1.3 million metric tonnes of maize harvest.
This is in view of the drought that affected the country for the previous farming season. The low maize yield recorded in the country can make farmers fall prey to the briefcase buyers and subsequently swindled.
For this reason, farmers should be wary about the briefcase buyers. The briefcase buyers in most cases swindle farmers by buying the latter's maize at the lower flow price than the market price of K330.00 recently announced by the government through the Food Reserve Agency ( FRA).
The best thing farmers can do is to sell their maize to the Food Reserve Agency at the floor market price of K330.00 for a 50kg bag of maize.
The floor price of K330.00 set by FRA is good in that it will enable the farmers to recoup the production cost in the cultivation of the crop. Furthermore, the market price will motivate the farmers to grow more maize in the next farming season.
Farmers have often times been duped by the briefcase buyers. To avoid being swindled as it has been the trend in the past, it is important to sensitise farmers about these briefcase buyers.
Zambia is a free market economy where the price of goods and services are determined by the forces of demand and supply. That said, the farmers can sell their maize to the private buyers at K330.00 or higher price. This makes business sense because farmers will make profit. Moreover, farming is a business and the whole essence of doing business is to make profit.