Zambia has recorded yet another bumper maize harvest. Travelling around Zambian towns and villages one observes stacks and stacks of bags of maize grain. The main storage depots are over-flowing with the maize. Satellite depots situated in the villages are also filled up with maize. Farmers are very happy that the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) is buying their produce and in many cases paying them on time.
This bumper harvest is however not in all areas of Zambia. Pockets of the country, for example, parts of Siavonga district did not record good maize harvests. Most of the rural households have already run out of food and are either purchasing maize or depending on relief. This is because parts of Siavonga district, if not all parts, experience the lowest amounts of rainfall in Zambia. Despite the fact that communities in these parts of Zambia should be growing cereals that do not require a large amount of water such as cassava, millet or sorghum the people in this area have a high preference for maize. Some early maturing maize varieties produce good yields but regardless of this most rural households are still growing late maturing local maize varieties putting their food security at risk.
This year and in the past few years the weather has been very favourable in most parts of Zambia resulting in very high maize production. This scenario can also be attributed to high numbers of farmers practicing conservation agriculture particularly in Chipata district. Most farmers are using conservation farming techniques that improve soil fertility. There was also distribution of large quantities of chemical fertilisers to farmers in 2010/11 farming season under the government run Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP). These factors have now made Zambia a food surplus nation.
As already pointed out there are still pockets of very food insecure areas in the country particularly in the valley areas such as Siavonga where people had run out of maize stocks by as early as August this year. There is therefore need for the food distribution system to be improved in the country to ensure that food surplus areas help to feed food deficient areas. For this to happen there is need to put in place better food distribution policies. Currently, FRA is a major player in maize marketing and in storing food in the national reserves. The private sector also plays a critical role in purchasing maize from farmers. However, there are also high levels of exploitation of farmers by some private buyers who sometimes offer very uneconomical prices to farmers for their maize.
Given the fact that the climate has now become very unpredictable it is important that this bumper harvest is stored appropriately. Last year a lot of maize went to waste because of poor storage or late movement of maize from satellite depots to the main depots. This resulted in damage to most of the maize that was bought by FRA because of getting soaked from the rain. This year FRA should therefore make adequate preparation to avoid similar losses. It is not certain that there will be other bumper harvests in the future given the constant changes in climate and other maize production factors. East Africa has been adversely affected by drought in recent years and therefore we can not take the favourable weather that we have experienced in the past few years for granted. We need to become better at post-harvest handling of our bumper harvests. We also need to be better because government has spent billions of kwacha to buy this maize from farmers and therefore these financial resources will be wasted if we neglect to handle the maize appropriately. We also need to be better at putting in place distribution mechanisms that ensure that people living in maize deficient areas are given the ability to grow alternative crops and have enough purchasing power to be able to buy maize from surplus areas.
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