RELIABLE MARKETS KEY TO BOOSTING THE ECONOMY – MOOBWE 

By Noel Iyombwa

RELIABLE market access has the capacity to boost productivity, increase incomes and strengthen food security especially among small-scale farmers, Small Scale Farmers Development Agency (SAFADA) Executive Director Boyd Moobwe has observed.

Mr. Moobwe said reliable market access could contribute to reducing poverty and hunger in any given country and that smallholder farmers played an important role in contributing to the country’s food security.

He, however, said that smallholder farmers in Zambia had been having challenges in terms of finding access to markets for their produce or crops.

He noted that despite growing other cash crops, for a long time, smallholder farmers had only depended on maize as a cash crop and for consumption with the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) being the only reliable market to which the crop was mainly sold.

He expressed concern that access to markets had continued to be a challenge for smallholder farmers.

“There are a lot of crops that our farmers can grow and make good profits but limited or lack of market has always been the big issue. There are crops such as legumes that have a market out there compared to maize but farmers have no information on their marketability or they have no connections.

“The question is, who is supposed to find a market for our farmers? The answer is simple; the Government should take the lead to find a market for smallholder farmers because they have the information which crops are doing fine on the market and which private sector organisations are interested in a particular crop. As much as the Government has been encouraging farmers to diversify, there is a need for it to find a ready-market for crops they encourage farmers to go for,” Mr. Moobwe said.

He said the private sector on the other hand needed to come out and support farmers by buying their crops at a good price.

He regretted that most companies wanted to buy crops from farmers by dictating prices and that farmers had no say because they did not have where to sell their produce but urged the Government to work with farmer organisations in order to know the plight of small-scale farmers.

And Mr. Moobwe charged that smallholder farmers had the capacity to grow winter maize but lacked financial capacity and machinery.

He said just like commercial farmers, smallholder farmers could contribute to food security especially that the country was prone to drought crises.

“Once empowered, smallholder farmers can also play a role in ensuring food security especially this time when there is a drought that has affected the country. It is only that they lack financial and technical capacity to contribute to ensuring the country is food secured,” he said.

 And a farmer, who is also a member of a cooperative in Bwana Mkubwa, Bertha Mkandawire says farmers are anxious to produce different crops but that due to a lack of market, they have been stuck on maize.

“The Government has been preaching about crop diversification and we want to do that but where to sell the same crops is a major problem. For example, farmers can grow crops such as cowpeas just like the way we grow maize which we sell to the Food Reserve Agency but where to sell them is where the problem is and we cannot eat all the cowpeas we produce.

“As smallholder farmers, we can do more but limited access to the market has made us stuck on the same level because we just grow maize to sell on top of that we wait for floor price to be announced,” Ms. Mkandawire said.

She called for policies that will see to it that the Government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, carry out some market research for the smallholder farmers.

She observed that there were some private sector organisations that were willing to buy certain crops but that farmers did not have that information hence it was difficult to know.