Minister of Labor and Social security Brenda Tambatamba has directed the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) in Kasempa district to heighten its  outreach programmes to enhance the maize buying exercise.

Ms Tambatamba says the FRA must heighten its  maize buying exercise through engagement in extension and outreach programmes to ensure that the district is food secure.

She said this during the Disaster Mitigation and Management Unit district meeting in Kasempa district today.

“We are in an emergency, we are not going to buy like any other year which was normal here it’s dash and run and do everything possible,” Ms Tambatamba added.

She further explained that there is need for FRA to combine the maize buying exercise with the outreach programme for their buying target to be met.

“You are buying there while you have got other people reaching out to the farmers because you know that their is stiff competition,” Ms Tambatamba added.

She urged FRA buyers to become more aggressive and be mobile as they conduct the maize buying exercise to ensure that enough grain has been bought.

Meanwhile, District Administrative Officer Francis Makanga assured the Minister that the district administration office and FRA had put some measures to ensure the district was food secure.

“Like mechanisation is already there in far flung areas we have asked farmers to group themselves then we take mobile scales to be purchasing from there,” Mr Makanga said.

He disclosed that his office had written to the provincial permanent secretary to enable FRA to start buying maize on cash basis.

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He was confident that FRA had put in place mechanisms which would ensure that they meet the target as a result making the district food secure.