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CHAPTER 2
• All maize producers and buyers had to be registered with the Maize Board.
• No control would be exercised over grain silo owners with respect to the storage
of maize, and remuneration rates for storage would be determined by agreement
between the parties.
• Producers could sell their maize directly to buyers and prices were determined
by agreement between buyers and sellers.
• There was no restriction on the buying and selling or even importing of maize,
provided the imported maize complied with certain sanitary and phytosanitary
standards.
• Producers who supplied maize in the export pool received an advance/ton
on delivery, and after the final completion of the pool the surplus was divided
among them by way of a final payment on the basis of tons delivered.
In the next marketing season these arrangements were amended further to permit
the free exporting of maize too, subject to the acquisition of an export permit from
the Maize Board and the payment of an export levy. In that season the Maize Board
marketed only maize that was delivered in the export pools.
MAIZE TRUST/CBG COURT CASE
In protest against the high levies a number
of the biggest maize buyers (the Concerned
Buyers Group – also called the Fat Cats [see
cartoon alongside]) inititated a court appli-
cation in 1994 to have certain of the condi-
tions of the Summer Grain scheme declared
unconstitutional, as well as an application
for an interdict to prevent the Maize Board to
collect levies on certain maize transactions.
The application was unsuccessful. This way
the ‘country’s biggest maize buyers were
prepared to disrupt the total agricultural
industry for their own personal gain (from
Mielies/Maize
, January 1995).