Maize growers cry foul over food aid

Swazi maize farmers are blaming World Food Programme (WFP) aid for their inability to sell their produce, despite evidence that record high maize prices coupled with increased poverty are undermining consumers' ability to purchase the national staple food. "Local maize millers are now at one-third of normal milling capacity as a result of a sharp reduction in maize meal sales, a factor which may be attributed to the increase in the volume of food aid in the form of maize and rice that the country is presently receiving from foreign donors. The Swazi maize industry is the verge of collapsing!" said W.H. Meyer, chairman of the Maize Marketing Advisory Committee, in full-page adverts in Swazi newspapers. The statement reported the recommendation of maize growers that until local stocks have been depleted, the government should no longer issue import permits to food aid organisations seeking to bring maize or rice into Swaziland. "In order to assist the country's drought and HIV/AIDS victims, donors should source the food supplies locally, in order to avoid harming the Swazi maize industry," the statement said. The maize growers claim that the country's major commercial millers and maize traders are on the verge of retrenching hundreds of employees or closing down operations completely "as a result of the disproportionate amount of food aid that is displacing commercially distributed maize". National Disaster Relief Task Force chairman Ben Nsibandze disputed the growers' claims in an interview with IRIN. "There is no surplus of maize in Swaziland - we are growing only a fraction of our needs. Unfortunately, what is grown has been priced beyond the ability of most food buyers to purchase," he said. "It is the policy of the World Food Programme to purchase locally whenever possible," an official with the agency's regional headquarters in South Africa told IRIN. The government's Central Statistics Office, which tracks food commodity prices in its consumer price index, noted that the price of locally produced maize sold by the National Maize Corporation at the end of last year's harvest was R1,500 (US $230) per mt - double the price of maize on the South African Futures Exchange, listed at around R750 per mt. "My wife - all Swazis are complaining about the high price of maize," said Nsibandze. Even middle-class families are cutting back on their purchase of maize flour, while families who comprise the two-thirds of the nation living in chronic poverty rely on small garden plots to grow any maize they can grind into meal. "If we haven't purchased maize locally, it is because the price is much higher than what we could buy elsewhere. There's nothing to stop us from buying locally if the stocks exist, and the price is right," Sarah Laughton, WFP's emergency relief coordinator in Swaziland told IRIN. By January 2004, when this year's harvest has been exhausted, WFP will be feeding an estimated 245,000 people, or about a quarter of the population. WFP's regional office in South Africa procures maize from foreign sources for Swaziland and, despite transportation costs into the landlocked kingdom, importing maize is cheaper than purchasing the local product. Food aid workers also dispute the maize growers' contention that there is a surplus of maize in Swaziland. The kingdom is facing its fifth consecutive year of diminished harvests. "Talk of maize surpluses is misleading. Food production is far below what the country needs - local production accounts for less than 35 percent of Swaziland's total cereal requirements," said Laughton. A special report issued by WFP and the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation projected a national cereal crop of 78,100 mt for 2003/04, while total consumption was estimated at 205,800 mt. A shortfall of around 127,700 mt of cereals would have to be imported, with 103,400 mt being brought into the country commercially. Emergency food aid organisations would have to obtain the remaining 24,300 mt. "Unfortunately, the talk of 'unsold bumper crops' in Swaziland is confusing donors. They are asking why food aid is even necessary," said Nsibandze. There is some good news. The FAO/WFP crop assessment survey indicated a maize crop yield of 6 percent more than last year. While this is still one-third below the average for the last five years, a greater supply will help to drive prices down slightly. "Area planted to maize was estimated to be 19 percent more than last year," said the report, which predicted a decline in maize prices during the upcoming marketing year due to relatively better domestic production and an anticipated good maize harvest in neighbouring South Africa, Swaziland's main food supplier.