Findings of a new Afrobarometer survey show that a majority of Malawians think the Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) is benefitting agro-related businesses or public officials more than intended farmers.
According to the report that the pan-African pollster and research agency released on Tuesday this week titled ‘Amid growing food insecurity, Malawians favour alternatives to the Affordable Inputs Programme’, 22 percent of the respondents think that poor farmers are the primary beneficiaries of the AIP.
Reads the report in part: “Most [38 percent] think the programme mainly benefits businesses such as transporters, suppliers, importers, and agro-dealers while 16 percent think it is politicians, 13 percent government officials and eight percent traditional leaders.”
But despite their concerns about the programme, 63 percent of the respondents are opposed to the abolishment of AIP with a majority supporting proposed alternatives such as providing input loans through farmers’ clubs or providing cash for inputs to poor farmers.
Findings of the survey conducted in August 2024 through interviews with 1 200 respondents further show that support for loans through farmers’ clubs is popular in the Central Region, in urban areas and among respondents with moderate lived poverty.
Reads the report: “These findings speak directly to the government and development partners, informing discussions on what might work to make subsidy programmes cost-effective in meeting the critical objective of food security.”
Reacting to the survey, Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale said yesterday that his ministry will keep on reforming the programme so that its efficiency and effectiveness are improved.
He said government is reforming the AIP to target households with land and labour while farmers without land are being moved to social cash transfer and public works programmes.
On alternatives to AIP, Kawale said the National Economic Empowerment Fund is reaching out to farmers in clubs with input loans.
“Our goal is to move people from subsistence farming to commercial farming by transitioning farmers from subsidy to loans and grants,” said the minister.
Speaking in an interview yesterday, agriculture policy expert Tamani Nkhono Mvula said there have been cases when civil servants and other politically-connected people have been included as AIP beneficiaries.
He further noted that smallholder farmers themselves sell the inputs to other people and this malpractice becomes difficult for the government to control.
“One of the ways of reforming the AIP is to turn it into a loan programme as this will give farmers incentives to utilise the inputs,” said Nkhono Mvula.
On his part, agriculture expert Leonard Chimwaza said the perception that AIP does not benefit the poor comes in due to artificial challenges that annually affect the programme such as late beneficiary selection, late procurement and distribution of the inputs and in some instances system failure.
For years, the government has invested billions of kwacha in AIP and its predecessor the Farm Inputs Subsidy Programme (Fisp) with the aim of promoting food security, but millions of Malawians remain food insecure annually.
In August last year, the World Bank said AIP has done little to enhance food security, climate resilience, or productivity and has instead trapped many rural households in poverty by perpetuating a maize-based agricultural system.
When the Tonse Alliance administration ascended to power through the court-sanctioned fresh presidential election in June 2020, about 3.7 million farmers were on AIP in the 2021/22 financial year but the number of beneficiaries was reduced to 2.5 million in 2022/23 before being trimmed to 1.5 million in 2023/24. AIP’s predecessor Fisp was targeting at least one million beneficiaries.
In the 2024/25 National Budget, the AIP was initially allocated K161 billion before being revised to K131.6 billion during the mid-year budget review while the target of 1 054 945 beneficiaries was maintained.
