South Africa’s hopes of looking to Zambia as one of its sources for the five to six million tonnes of maize it needs to import have been dashed as the neighbouring country’s 2015/2016 maize crop is expected to be a third lower than the 2014/2015 season.
Zambia National Farmers' Union spokesman, Kingsley Kaswende, said in a statement that if the current weather pattern continued, maize production could drop by 30%. “The high production areas have not had enough rain," he said.
Zambia's maize harvest dropped 21% to 2.6 million tonnes in the 2014/2015 season.
"The government is looking for possibilities of importing maize from South America as the entire region does not have enough maize stocks," President Edgar Lungu was quoted as saying by the Zambia Daily Mail.
