Maize price not cost reflective – CTPD

SUN REPORTER Writes THE K110 maize purchase price is not cost reflective and can hurt farmers, The Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD) has said. CTPD senior researcher, Simon Manda, noted that the current price only highlighted historic controversies associated with state intervention in agriculture. Government last week set the maize floor price at […]

Maize price not cost reflective – CTPD
SUN REPORTER Writes THE K110 maize purchase price is not cost reflective and can hurt farmers, The Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD) has said. CTPD senior researcher, Simon Manda, noted that the current price only highlighted historic controversies associated with state intervention in agriculture. Government last week set the maize floor price at K110, with the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) detailed to buy one million tonnes. Dr Manda said the FRA prices for commodities would not help stimulate rural growth as it would erode opportunities meant to enhance rural income disbursements necessary for driving an agricultural transition, poverty reduction, commercialisation and value addition. He said in a statement that the prices would discourage small-scale farmers and other rural producers to engage in agriculture. “CTPD advised that if care is not exercised, the country risks failing to produce a stream of empowered rural producers capable of commercialising and even transitioning into diversified economic and livelihood avenues. Dr Manda also said such low purchasing prices had the potential of depressing private sector actors who would even push their buying prices further down, undercutting what had been announced by FRA especially that the institution was associated with persisted delays in paying farmers. “With the growing public external debt now estimated at 11.2billion US dollars of external debt, we are even more worried that payment towards procurement of strategic reserves may even take longer than the 5 -6 months delays we have observed in the recent past,” he said. The Sun