Government has set a minimum price of K150 per Kilogramme (Kg) for buying maize from farmers in the 2017/18 agriculture season.
According to a statement from the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development signed by the ministry’s principal secretary Gray Phiri, the minimum farm gate price is effective 1st April 2018.
Farm gate price for maize during the 2016/17 agriculture season was K170/Kg.
The ministry has also set minimum prices for buying other crops such as rice polished (K530/Kg), pure beans (K400/Kg), groundnuts shelled (K450/Kg), cotton Grade A (K375/Kg) and sorghum (K150/Kg).
In the statement, the ministry has asked agro dealers, agro processors and others who buy crop commodities from farmers to buy crops at prices not less than the ones set by the Ministry of Agriculture.
According to the statement, licence to buy agricultural produce can be obtained from offices of programme managers in Karonga, Mzuzu, Kasungu, Lilongwe, Salima, Machinga, Blantyre and Shire Valley agriculture development divisions and from the office of director of crop development at the Ministry of Agriculture in Lilongwe.
Yes, minimum prices are set, but how to enforce them is a big drawback. Ministry of Agriculture can do better.
This government is a failed government setting up the price yet already on the ground a 50 kg bag in most of the areas is going at k4000, which is K 80 per kg. You are good at paper work but actionable work appreciated by the common man is not yet there, is the admarc ready to buy this commodity from Farmers?or its just a mechanism to control maize flow? How do you expect farmers to benefit from this, I expected the govnt could come up with proper ways of making a poor farmer profit from the hard labour other than mere setting of prices yet the opposite is happening on the ground,busy distributing 4billion to constituencies why can’t you empower admarc with money to buy from farmers at good prices yet now admarc is looking for loans to purchase maize this growing season,is DPP having think tanks or empty think tanks?