Farmers appeal to govt to hands off distribution of agriculture farm inputs

The Small-Scale Farmers Development Agency (SAFADA) has appealed to government to withdraw with immediate from its direct involvement in the procurement and distribution of agriculture farm inputs for farmers.

SAFADA Chief Executive Officer, Boyd Moobwe, in an interview on Sunday with Zambia Monitor alleged that the programme was failing to perform because there was a lot of hands affecting it.

He said government should contract the private sector (farmer-based organisation) to run the Farmers Input Support Programme (FISP) in collaboration with the other agriculture stakeholders.

“The plan by government to improve the performance of the Famer inputs support programme will not take place if the FISP will still be run by the Ministry of Agriculture it will fail because of a number of factors and multiples reason alluding to poor performance of FISP.

“This farming season should be the last for government to be directly involved in the procurement and distribution of agriculture inputs and 2023/24 farming season must be controlled by farmers themselves,” Moobwe said.

He said SAFADA could engage technocrats and other experts in agriculture once contract to run FISP.

“Once the Ministry of Agriculture pulls out of direct involvement in the procurement and distribution of inputs, agriculture will be depoliticized and the programme performance will really improve.

“The farmers will contract suppliers and the electronic system and digital code number for each farmer will be introduced,” Moobwe said.

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