WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2009-05-18 Time: 22:00:04 Posted By: Jan
THE Millers Association of Zambia (MAZ) has welcomed the K65,000 maize floor price announced by the Government and predicted a reduction in the price of mealie meal by next month.
But the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) complained that the floor price was not enough for its members to recover costs and would have a devastating impact on production.
The Food Reserve Agency (FRA) on Saturday announced that this year’s maize floor price was K65,000 per 50kg bag.
MAZ vice-president, Peter Cottan, said in an interview in Lusaka yesterday that millers welcomed the K65,000 announced by the FRA because it reflected the correct market price.
“We were part of the consultative discussions with the Ministry of Agriculture. We discussed various prices and agreed that it should not go beyond K65,000,” he said.
Mr Cottan said the agreed price would by June help reduce and stabilise mealie meal prices because farmers had produced more maize this year.
ZNFU president Jervis Zimba, however, said in a statement yesterday that farmers were not being rewarded for the tireless efforts they put in to ensure that the country had enough food.
He said that it was inconceivable that the FRA and the Government could elect to set the floor price as low as K65,000.
“This price is demeaning to the farmers. It is well established that fertiliser prices last year were very high such that it was only fair that the FRA should have applied due consideration in coming up with the price,” he said.
He said farmers would like to recover their input costs in order to remain viable in their farming business. adding that the processes that went into setting a floor price were important and should not be trivialised.
Mr Zimba said that as far as the union was concerned, consultations between various interest groups were not exhaustive because the ZNFU technical team provided well-researched and undisputed costs ranging between K75,000 and K85,000 per 50kg bag.
He said the union rejected the calculated move by the FRA and the Government to use the Fertiliser Support Programme (FSP) as a benchmark in setting the price because less than 10 per cent of the farmers benefitted from the FSP.
He said that farmers wanted to recover costs from last year’s high fertiliser prices and that taking into consideration the changes of the foreign exchange rate, the maize floor price had in real terms gone down.
Mr Zimba said that the ZNFU disassociated itself from the consultative process with the FRA because before a concrete position was reached, the FRA had already made up its mind to announce the price.
“As a serious reflection ZNFU has called for a council meeting on May 28, 2009 to discuss the matter further.
“Until then farmers are hereby advised not to sell their maize on the floor price because it is not cost reflective,” he said.
He also condemned FRA’s announcement that it would only buy 110,000 tonnes of maize as strategic reserves when the food balance sheet indicated that the country needed 70,000 to 80,000 tonnes per month.
Given the fact that the food balance sheet had increased, logic demanded that what should be held as strategic reserves should also be increased and the FRA should buy between 300 and 400,000 tonnes of maize as reserves.
He said failure by the FRA to mop out the maize would lead to the proliferation of briefcase businessmen who would buy the commodity at low prices and export it to other countries.
Original Source: 
Original date published: 18 May 2009
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200905180617.html?viewall=1