By CHATULA KANGALI –
FARMERS have cried foul on the drastic fall of the prices of soya beans by more than 100 percent during this year’s maize marketing season.
A kilograme of soya beans that was previously fetching for K4.5 is this year selling between K1.40 to K1.80 the same quantity.
Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) president Jervis Zimba said in an interview that the price of soya had this year fallen by more than 100 percent.

Soya beans

Mr Zimba attributed the fall in the prices of the crop to less appetite by oil seed crushers  in buying the crop which is the major raw material in the manufacturing of edible oils.
He said the  oil  seed crushers had  this year  not  bought as much  soya beans because of enough  which had remained unsold.
“The  price  of  soya  beans this  years  is  low, a  50 kilogram is  fetching  about K80  from around K220 in the  last  farming season, the  buyers  of the crop, the oil seed crushers  are not buying because  some of the material they  procured  last  year is  still unused,”  he said.
The ZNFU chief said the price of soya beans was lower than the price of the import and the production cost of the crop.
He said the local edible on the local market was not competing with imported cheap cooking oil that had flooded the market.
Mr Zimba said some individuals were still importing and smuggling cooking oil into the country hence making local compete unfavorably.
He further urged  Government to ban the importation of edible oil which had led to huge unsold quantities of locally processed edible oils.
He said Government should put in place measures  to curb the smuggling of cooking oil into the country.
Mr  Zimba said the  importation and smuggling of edible oil in the country had adversely affected  the growth of the  soya beans subsector.