Zambia's Food Reserve Agency (FRA) has bought more maize from farmers across the nation than it had planned due to a bump harvest in this crop season, Saturday's Times of Zambia reported.

The FRA has bought 382,000 tons of maize this year, the paper cited Agriculture and Cooperative Minister Ben Kapita as saying

Kapita said the government had in this year's budget projected to spend 50 billion kwacha (13 million U.S. dollars) to buy 80,000 tons of maize but the country had recorded more yields than it had anticipated due to the bump harvest.

In view of the harvest, the Zambian government asked the FRA to ensure that it procured all the surplus crops.

The FRA would also continue exporting maize so that the money realized from exports could be used to pay farmers, said the paper.

Agricultural officials have earlier predicted that Zambia would this year record a 64.5 percent rise in maize output, which would stand at 1,424,439 tons from 866,187 tons during the 2004/05 farming season.

In February this year, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa banned any exportation of maize and mealie meal in consideration of the country's food demand.

The southern African country was hit by a food shortage last year mainly due to the poor rainfall during the 2004/05 farming season, a situation exacerbated by unlimited maize exports to neighboring countries.

Source: Xinhua