Ministry stops AIP payments
Ministry of Agriculture has suspended the scanning exercise for farmers to redeem farm inputs under the Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) until those already scanned receive their fertiliser.
The ministry’s AIP coordinator Justin Kagona told the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture on Thursday in Lilongwe that 201 000 farmers that scanned for NPK fertiliser and 529 000 for Urea fertiliser are yet to redeem their inputs.
During the scanning process, farmers pay K30 000 for two bags of fertiliser, notably NPK and Urea each weighing 50 kilogrammes.
Kagona said: “The exercise has been suspended because we observed that there is a backload between the numbers scanned in the system and what we have given out to beneficiaries is huge.”
He said as of January 31, about 1.9 million beneficiaries had redeemed NPK fertiliser, which translated to 95 780 metric tonnes (MT) or 77.4 percent and 1.4 million beneficiaries for Urea or 77.2
Committee member Joshua Malango, who is Dedza Central East member of Parliament, said data he obtained from the ministry showed that government needed to supply 79 822 bags of NPK and 202 230 bags of Urea in the Central Region for those already scanned.
He said in the Southern Region there were 119 000 bags of NPK fertiliser yet to be supplied while 309 000 bags of Urea fertiliser are still outstanding.
“Money from the fertiliser was already collected. So, the government must quickly provide fertiliser to these people,” Malango said.
Smallholder Farmers Fertiliser Revolving Fund of Malawi chief executive officer Richard Chikunkhuzeni has since assured farmers that in the next two to three weeks they will redeem their inputs.
He said: “We are expecting to receive some Urea fertiliser between now and the next two to three weeks. We expect 8 000MT through Liwonde Dry Port, about 5 000 MT from Optichem and 5 000 MT from Export Trading Group [ETG].
“There is also 20 000 MT of NPK fertiliser donation from Russia. We expect that these are going to cover the remaining gap in NPK.”
Last month, Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale said so far only 66 percent of AIP beneficiaries have redeemed all their inputs.
The figure means about 825 000 of the 2.5 million beneficiaries were yet to access the fertiliser as at January 31.
Kawale said redemption will only be concluded when all beneficiaries have accessed the inputs.
He assured that additional inputs will be on the way into the country as the process of offloading 20 000 MT of NPK fertiliser donated by Russia through the World Food Programme has also commenced in Mozambique.
Kawale said: “The offloading which started some two days ago was expected to take between seven to eight days, but it may take a little earlier.
“The bagging and transferring of the cargo from Beira to Malawi will commence immediately.”
However, at this stage of the agriculture season, maize crop is almost halfway to maturity in most parts of the Southern Region such that the farmers may not need the basal dressing fertiliser.
In the 2022/23 National Budget, government allocated K109.4 billion for the programme, which this year has been riddled with supply shortages and logistical challenges.
