13 500 Mwanza households to benefit from Fisp
About 13 500 families in Mwanza will benefit from 1 350 metric tonnes of fertiliser which government has allocated for the district in the 2015/16 Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp).
Mwanza district agriculture development officer (Dado) Ezra Mbendera said this on Monday when he briefed members of Mwanza District Council’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.
He said despite the district registering a slight decrease in farming families from 30 600 to about 29 000, the number of Fisp beneficiaries has remained at 13 500 since last year.
He also explained that beneficiaries for this year’s Fisp have been selected randomly at the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development headquarters and appealed for community understanding, saying the new system would see some villages having more beneficiaries than last year.
He said: “In Mwanza, we have Export Trading and Nyiombo companies. These two companies have been contracted by government to supply, distribute, store and retail farm inputs to the beneficiaries.”
Traditional Authority (T/A) Kanduku commended government for engaging private companies in the exercise, saying the private sector would provide efficiency in the programme.
