By Joseph Tembo 
An Economist has urged Government to ensure that farmers who get subsidized farming inputs under the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) are also set for growth.
Speaking in an interview with Money News, Partner Siabutuba said when farmers grow, they will be able to produce more and the country can always have surplus food which can be exported.
“Maize is a raw material for mealie meal, so if you get maize at a cheaper price, so that you can get mealie meal at a cheaper price, unless you subsidize but we are in a trajectory where subsidies are being done away with. So the only way that government can try and subsidize is give farmers subsidized inputs.”
“But then we need to make sure that these farmers we give subsidized inputs are also set for growth, and when farmers grow, it means that they can produce more and we can have surplus food and by-products for maize such as stock feed which we can also export,” he stated
Meanwhile, Mr. Siabutuba noted that the K340 maize price for the 2025 crop marketing season will support farmers to profitably realize their agriculture effort and encourage them to grow more grain for national food security, thereby contributing to economic growth.
“Agriculture is a business and farmers invest, so for them to recoup the investment that they had made, it means that they need to be given a good price and I think that K340 is very reasonable for farmers to make their profits.”
“More-so, some of the farmers have had to plant twice because the initial rains failed but there was still some assurance that rain was going to come. So farmers this year had challenges to really get to produce,” he said.
He stated that by pegging the maize price at K340 per 50kg bag, government is trying to create a good balance in terms of economic growth arising from agriculture.
He stated that once there is stability in the cost of food, the country can then be able to control inflation which is by and large contributed by rising food prices.
“What is going to happen now is that there will be stability in the prices of food because farmers will be able to supply maize to FRA and FRA can sell this maize to the millers at a cheaper price and millers can transfer the benefits to the consumers by making sure that the cost of mealie meal does not get out of control.”
“The other element that we will see is the natural economic factors. There is an inducement of competition in the milling sector. So millers will be forced to bring their prices down because ZNS is reducing its prices, therefore those are natural economic factors that will being to play,” he said.
He added that the farmers’ expectation was that the maize price was going to more than K340 this year, seeing that the price was K330 in 2024.
“So we have a K10 increase which is still okay but the expectation of the farmers was that it was going to go up to K370 or K380, others were even projecting K400,” Mr. Siabutuba added.
News Desk 
Cecilia Chiluba