Kabwe exceeds maize buying target

Kabwe exceeds maize buying target

Kabwe , September 2, 2014, ZANIS……………Kabwe District Commissioner Patrick Chishala says the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) has bought 129,000 bags of maize in the area.

Mr Chishala said the district has exceeded its target of 60,000 by 50kg bags of maize of which 93,000 bags have  since been moved from the satellite depots to the holding depots.

  He however said that farmers were still delivering some more maize to the FRA and that at least 150,000 will be off-loaded by next week.

Mr Chishala added that  Kabwe district has contributed largely to the bumper harvest recorded during the 2013-2014 farming season.

“I would like to agree with the ministry of agriculture that indeed Zambia has this year recorded a bumper harvest and am happy that Kabwe as a District has contributed to that, ” he said.

Mr Chishala explained that K1.4 million has since been spent on paying the farmers that sold maize to FRA.

He said farmers are being paid on a weekly basis in order to ensure that they have enough money to prepare for the coming farming season.

Meanwhile, the District Commissioner said he was happy that no maize theft has been recorded in the District since the on-set of the maize buying exercise by the FRA.

“Am happy that that as a district we are not facing the challenge of theft except that the maize is coming in large quantities and hence there is not enough space for storage, “ Mr Chishala said.

He further said that the district is taking precautions to secure maize and keeping it in good storage places to prevent it from being soaked when the rains start.