Zambia seeks to double maize output

Zambia plans to double white maize production to 2.4 million tonnes in 2004/05 and has distributed 60,000 tonnes of subsidised fertiliser to farmers, the agriculture minister said on Friday.
Agriculture Minister Mundia Sikatana said the southern African country would also revive the defunct Co-operative Bank, previously owned by the state, to be responsible for giving low-interest loans to farmers.
Sikatana said the government had worked out a plan to double white maize production to 2.4 million tonnes from the 1.2 million produced in 2003/04 and to raise maize exports to neighbouring countries.
Zambia has this year exported maize to Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe.
Sikatana said between 120,000 and 150,000 peasant farmers would benefit from government-subsidised pesticides and seed, which has been handed out since September.
"Fertiliser has already been purchased and distributed to farmers countrywide...in order to double production next year," Sikatana told Reuters.
Sikatana said fertiliser was being provided at half the market value to encourage more people to take up farming. He said farmers' co-operatives, which were disbanded in the 1990s, had also been revived.
Farmers will buy a 50-kg bag of fertiliser at $10 instead of $20.
"The co-operative movements have been revived and the farmers have started buying shares in the Co-operative Bank, which will start operations very soon," Sikatana said.
Sikatana said co-operative movements, which were previously responsible for distributing pesticides and seed to farmers and then marketing their crops, would operate under the same format.
Zambia won International Monetary Fund (IMF) approval this year to subsidise agriculture as a way of reducing poverty in a country where the majority of the 10 million people live in abject poverty.
Zambia has suffered food shortages in recent years, but this year's harvest has been good and Zambia has won several maize tenders that would normally have been expected to go to South Africa, where currency strength has lifted relative prices.
Sikatana said the government would purchase shares in the Co-operative Bank, but did not say how many.
The Co-operative bank was liquidated in the 1990s after farmers defaulted on loan repayments.
Industry officials say the bank requires a minimum of 48 billion Zambian kwacha ($9.6 million) to become operational.
Sikatana said a new long-term national policy mapping out the role of the government and the private sector in agriculture will be submitted to cabinet for approval before being submitted to parliament to be ratified into law.