NFRA yet to buy reserve maize

The National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) is yet to buy maize for the Strategic Grain Reserves (SGR) due to the delayed budget, passed just last week by Parliament.

The delay may further strain the agency’s purse by buying the maize at exorbitant prices from private traders or importing since most farmers already sold theirs.

A source from NFRA, speaking on condition of anonymity last week said except for the Central Region, silos in the Southern, Eastern and Northern regions were depleted.

NFRA general manager Kelvin Mmangisa confirmed in an interview his agency had not bought maize.

“What we have in our depots in Limbe and Lilongwe are carryovers from last year. I cannot say whether this is adequate or not, but for a fact, the delay will have an impact,” he said.

The NFRA boss invited Nation On Sunday crew to visit silos in Lilongwe and Limbe to appreciate the issue.

The crew indeed found maize which NFRA spokesperson Brenda Kayongo said was about 20 000 metric tonnes.

“We sent a letter to ODDP (Office of the Director of Public Procurement) two weeks ago and are waiting for their approval. When everything is finalised, we will advertise in newspapers inviting farmers to sell us maize,” she said.

Kayongo said NFRA was confident farmers would sell their maize to NFRA, claiming that most have approached the agency to inquire when the agency would start buying.

“We just need 40 000 tonnes more to meet our minimum demand. We plan to buy 100 000 metric tonnes and are sure to meet the demand,” said Kayongo.

Civil Society Agriculture Network (Cisanet), in a response to a questionnaire, said according to April 2014 Famine Early Warning System Network (Fewsnet), NFRA had almost no maize in the country’s SGR.

National coordinator for the network Tamani Nkhono Mvula said SGR stocks were extremely low because most maize was either sold or still in the field as people had not harvested in most parts of the country.

“This was worrisome because reserves are not supposed to remain empty for more than three months. The 20 000 metric tonnes of maize in the SGR is less than one third of the capacity of the SGR,” he said.

Mvula said that a recent Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (Mvac) report showed about 640 009 people may need relief food.

Mvula said: “This translates to about 16 000 metric tonnes of maize (or maize equivalent) and K1.7 billion cash equivalent.

“If these figures are anything to go by, the situation is not that worrisome. These figures may increase towards the end of the years.”

He said the delay in passing the budget was a challenge because it affected operations of NFRA, Admarc and the Agriculture Commodity Exchange (ACE).