National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) has with immediate effect increased maize buying prices to motivate farmers and traders to deliver more maize to the agency.
NFRA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) George Macheka said this at a press conference this morning in Lilongwe.
Specifically, Macheka says they have raised the prices from 1100 to 1280 kwacha per kg for mobile and open markets, and 1, 300 kwacha per kg for maga farmers.
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This price increase is aimed at ensuring sufficient maize reserves for the country during lean periods, responding to current market dynamics.
Inereased Maize Buying Prices
"In a strategic move to reward our farmers and encourage them to sell their maize, NFRA is pleased to announce an increase in maize buyng prices. Effective immediately, the buying price for maize in open and mobile markes wl rise from K1,100 to K1,280 per kilogram. Mega farmers, the price will be set at K1,300 per Kilogram. This decision reflects
our commitment to promoting mega farmers and ensuring that all farmers receive fair
compensation for their hard work," Said.
Updating the nagion on the current status of the maize in the strategic grain reserve, the CEO said so far the reserve has aggregated over 37,800 metric tons.
"Our target for the year, which is also in the budget, is 105,000 metric tons. However, for the resources that will be allocated in the budget, we are expecting to procure about 55,000 Metric tons and the shortfall just as has been, in the past, is usually procured using resources from other development partners. We've got a number of partners that were already in discussion and we believe that they will be able to close that gap, so we will get to about 105,000 by the end of the year," he said.
Importing Maize to Stabilize Prices
According to the CEO, the 2024/2025 season had some shortfall.
"While the national requirement is 3.5 Million metric tonnes of maize , the country produced only approximately 2.9 miIlion metric tonnes of maize, resulting in a shortfall of about 600,000 tonnes, this is the maize that traders are hoarding," he said.
The CEO said recognizes the challenges
maize hoarding, which usually disrupts food value chain, market stability as well as creating artificial shortages and leads to inflated prices to the detriment of the consumer.
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"The maize hoarding has resulted in sharp rises in maize prices over the past few weeks which cannot be allowed to continue. This is the same reason we have decided to import maize from Tanzania at a very affordable price, just to stabilize the price on the market," he said.
