THE Food Reserve Agency (FRA) will on Monday start buying maize following the reduction of moisture content to acceptable levels.

FRA executive director Anthony Mwanaumo said the agency last week carried out a survey in various parts of Zambia and established that the moisture content of maize had reduced to around 12 per cent. Dr Mwanaumo said all the 469 satelite depots translating into an average of seven depots per district would start receiving the maize on Monday.

He advised farmers to ensure their maize was clean and dry to avoid delays. Dr Mwanaumo said the FRA programme was only for genuine small-scale farmers and to ensure that the benefits reached the intended bebeficiaries. The agency had strengthened its systems to keep away ghost farmers.

He said the release of the K20 billion by the Government and a bit of FRA's own resources would help ensure that the maize received was backed by money in the bank. On Wednesday this week, the Government announced that it would release K20 billion to the FRA for buying maize for this year's crop marketing season.

Finance and National Planning Minister, Situmbeko Musokotwane said the Government was committed to seeing to it that the money was released to enable the FRA continue with the crop buying exercise.

He said the Government would continue to release the money in installments until the agency bought the planned 120,000 tonnes of maize from small-scale farmers.

Recently, the FRA announced the maize floor price, which has been pegged at K65,000 for a 50kg bag and K60,000 for a 40kg bag of rice.

Since the start of the exercise, there have been complaints from farmers that the FRA was not buying the produce but the agency said marketing had been delayed by the high moisture content in the crop.