AIP woes linger as deadline looms
With less than 10 days to President Lazarus Chakwera’s 40-day deadline, less than 50 percent of beneficiaries in the sampled districts have redeemed fertiliser under the Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP).
During the launch of this year’s AIP on October 20 in Kasungu District, the President gave Ministry of Agriculture 40 days to deliver the Tonse Alliance administration’s flagship initiative aimed at addressing food security.
But spot-checks in some districts this week established that some such as Lilkoma are yet to start selling farm inputs while others have less than quarter redemption rate.
In Blantyre District, out 60 249 beneficiaries just about 9 300 had redeemed by Tuesday while in Chiradzulu, out of 17 091 beneficiaries only 3 077 accessed farm inputs, representing about 18 percent redemtion rate.
Mchinji District has about 62 622 beneficiaries, however less than 10 000 farmers have redeemed. In Salima, out of 36 404 beneficiaries, about 18 900 bags of NPK and about 4 368 bags of Urea were redeemed, representing 52 percent and 12 percent redeem rate, respectively.
On the other hand, out of 142 022 beneficiaries under Mzuzu Agricultural Development Division (ADD), 29 904 bags of NPK and 60 622 bags of Urea were redeemed, representing about 21 and 42.7 percent, respectively as of yesterday.
Mzuzu ADD comprises five agricultural districts, namely Mzimba South, Mzimba North, Rumphi, Nkhata Bay and Likoma.
In an interview on Tuesday, Chiradzulu district director of agriculture environment and natural resources Dennis Zingeni said farmers are struggling to access the commodity because most of the markets are yet to open.
He said out of expected 18 markets, only four Smallholder Farmers Fertiliser Revolving Fund of Malawi (SFFRFM) depots are operational in the district.
Said Zingeni: “This is forcing farmers to travel a long distance to redeem their farm inputs.”
Mchinji district agricultural development officer Hastings Yotamu said the biggest challenge is that names of some farmers are appearing under a different constituency.
“There are situations where you find that names of beneficiaries are recorded under a different constituency,” he said.
The situation comes at a time some beneficiaries are spending days and nights at SFFRFM outlets hoping to access farm inputs.
Reacting to the situation, Farmers Union of Malawi president Maness Nkhata said they have received complaints from farmers nationwide faulting government for allegedly taking long to stock and restock fertiliser supplies.
She noted that the main reason behind perpetual poor performance of the AIP is government’s poor planning.
Ministry of Agriculture Principal Secretary Dickxie Kampani asked for a questionnaire and more time as he was attending meetings.
But during a briefing two weeks ago, Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale was upbeat that the programme will beat the set target.
In the 2023/24 National Budget, Parliament allocated K109 billion for AIP which has seen one million beneficiaries axed.
