No plans to import maize—minister
Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale says the Malawi Government has no plans to import maize because it has information that the staple grain is readily available in the country.
His position comes after the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Food Security proposed importation to fill the food gap amid struggles by State agencies, namely National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) and Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) to meet their maize purchase targets three months after going on the market.
Speaking in an interview yesterday, Kawale said private traders had 500 000 metric tonnes (MT) of maize as of April and May this year, as such, the ministry believes there is maize available locally.
He said: “The deficit [in Admarc and NFRA purchases] has nothing to do with the shortage of maize in the country. Admarc and NRFA are receiving maize purchase allocations from the Treasury in tranches and they will continue to buy until all the money allocated to them is exhausted.”
Kawale said the government expects more maize to become available after harvest from irrigation farming, but the ministry is still compiling the estimated maize tonnage from irrigation because some farmers did not register the sizes of their gardens.
But in a separate interview, Grain Traders Association of Malawi president Grace Mijiga-Mhango dismissed assertions that traders have a lot of maize.
She said maize prices were high as early as May which indicated that traders did not have enough maize stocks.
Mijiga-Mhango further said that the private traders do not have storage capacity to hold even half the 500 000MT the minister highlighted. She said, if anything, the maize in traders’ possession cannot exceed 100 000MT.
She said: “For those in this business, we know that most of the maize we are buying is coming from Tanzania and with some coming from Mozambique.
“The truth is that the government has no capacity to import maize due to forex challenges. The good thing is that reality will soon catch up with them. We have experienced this before where the government is assuming the private sector is sitting on stocks only to discover later that there is nothing.”
Earlier this month, Admarc told The Nation that it had K38 billion to buy 40 600MT of maize but had only spent about K18 billion on 26000 MT, leaving a deficit of 14 600 MT.
On the other hand, NFRA said it has procured 25 000 MT of maize against its 60 000 MT target.
Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and the International Food Policy Research Institute (Ifpri) have made a fresh push for Malawi to import maize to replenish the national reserves and help stabilize local prices.
Committee chairperson Sameer Suleman said their position is that the country does not have enough maize in its stocks and the government should authorise NFRA and Admarc to import maize as well as other food items that Malawians can use.
In its Monthly Maize Market Report published on August 14, Ifpri noted that the average price of maize in July 2024 was K792/kg.
According to the report, neighbouring Tanzania continues to report the lowest maize prices among Malawi’s neighbours with a 50 kilogramme (kg) bag pegged at an equivalent of K20 000 at the official exchange rate of K1 751 per dollar.
Commenting on the calls for maize importation, Economics Association of Malawi acting president Bertha Bangara-Chikadza said they make sense since the government has an obligation to provide essential goods and necessities such as food to its citizens.
“It is pertinent that the government comes in to ensure that Malawians have access to food at affordable prices regardless of the circumstances,” she said.
Overall, Malawi’s plan was to fill a 600 000MT maize deficit through winter and irrigation farming.
But The Nation’s analysis based on expert interviews and the Ifpri report two weeks ago showed that the Ministry of Agriculture’s K270 billion plan for off-rainy season maize production has been plagued by funding woes and dry soils from the El Nino-induced drought.
