The Food Reserve Agency-FRA has indefinitely extended the 2018 crop marketing season in an effort to buy more Maize.
FRA Board Chairperson Joe Simachila has told Money FM News in an interview that the Agency hopes to buy as much maize as possible through the extension.
Mr Simachila says the Agency does not expect to buy the targeted 500 000 metric tonnes of Maize during the extension, but that it hopes to buy as much maize from framers as possible.
He says the Agency has since closed down satellite depots, but that it will continue to by the crops at its FRA depots.
And Small-Scale Farmers Development Agency – SAFADA has welcomed the decision by the Food Reserve Agency-FRA to indefinitely extend the 2018 crop marketing season.
SAFADA Executive Director Boyd Mobwe has told Money FM in an interview that the extension of the crop marketing season will allow FRA to buy enough maize from the farmers.
He has since urged FRA to ensure that it buys the commodity on cash, adding that buying on credit will subject small scale farmers to financial stress.
He has since advised the Agency to be ending its crop marketing season in December, saying that by doing so FRA will be able to buy a lot of crops from farmers.
And Mr Mobwe has also commended Smart Zambia for introducing the cardless redeeming method for farmers in the country to have easy access to farming inputs.
He says most farmers where finding it difficult to access their farming inputs because they used to forget their pin numbers.
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