ZAMBIA: A better meal than maize-meal: Cassava
SAMFYA, 31 March 2009 (IRIN): As food prices soar and stocks continue to fall, Zambians are finding it increasingly difficult to depend on maize and are being urged to look at a cheaper, drought- and pest-resistant alternative that already puts food on the table in the north of the country.
– Even if there is no maize-meal, I can not suffer. I am able to eat my cassava, said Ruth Chalwe, a small-scale farmer in the Samfya district of Luapula Province in northern Zambia.
– I sell a 25 kg bag of cassava-meal for 70.000 kwacha (about 14 US dollar), or 2.500 kwacha (0,40 dollar) per plate … so I also make something small to buy anything that I want – things like soap, salt, cooking oil, she said.
Maize-meal prices have more than doubled in the past two years in a country where most people live on less than a dollar a day, so at around 20 dollar for a25 kg bag in some rural areas, the national staple is quickly becoming unaffordable.
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