Maize Prices Are A Hot Potato

 All over the country, maize prices are falling freely like an amateur drunkard.

So dramatic is the fall that the reality that, just last year, a 50-kilogramme (kg) bag of maize was selling at K100,000 or more feels like a prolonged bad dream.

As expected, buyers are singing praises about the current administration. Who can blame them? Even researchers are reflecting the fall of prices of the staple food in their reports.

The Centre for Social Concern, Development Media Africa, Bring It Up, National Statistical Office and even the Ministry of Agriculture, among others, have in the past three months reflected the trend in their reports or bulletins.

In the latest case, International Food Policy Research Institute has indicated that retail prices for maize fell by 29 percent in June compared to the corresponding period last year. The institute has linked this to increased supplies from the 2025-26 harvest and continued imports from neighbouring Mozambique and Zambia.

However, other observers, including grain traders, have warned that the decline in prices is expected to squeeze farmers' incomes at a time production costs have risen sharply.

For instance, Grain Traders Association of Malawi has indicated that local farmers are facing a precarious situation. It says the absence of a reliable domestic market and the continued export ban have worsened the situation for local farmers.

Whatever the case, it is clear that supply for maize is higher than demand, such that it will be difficult for farmers who have produced the crop to break even, let alone make a profit.

This is, clearly, a disaster for them as they may not be able to generate enough profit to buy inorganic fertiliser, which continues to fetch higher prices than those that prevailed last year.

Using the price of K20, 000 per 50-kilogramme (kg) bag of maize, for example, it would take a farmer with a child in public university over 60 bags of maize weighing 50 kilogrammes to raise K1.3 million. From the same quantity of bags, the farmer would want to raise enough funds for the purchase of fertiliser and even labour, among other things.

Surely, farmers are facing a toll order, with no one, not even the government, paying attention to their predicament.

If the government is not careful, it may face a situation where there is low production next season—not just because of the Super El Nino that has been predicted but also because some farmers will lose interest in less-paying maize cultivation while others will simply have no financial muscle to buy inorganic fertiliser.

We, therefore, implore the government to rethink its strategy on maize before the country makes friends with hunger.

There must be a balance between maize production costs and the selling price so that, in the end, it must be a win-win situation for farmers and consumers.

Never say we never warned you.