2014/15 Fisp registers success, says official

Unlike in the previous years, the 2014/2015 Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp) seems to have registered success story as more than 90 percent of the farmers countrywide have received the subsidised fertiliser.

A visit to various districts in the Central Region last week indicated that a good number of farmers have received the commodity while others continue to flock to the designated markets to buy their bags.

Speaking to journalists who toured Dowa and Salima districts, Fisp deputy national coordinator Osbourne Tsoka said despite that the whole process started late, a remarkable progress has been made.

He said as of last week, about 135 829 of 150 000 metric tonnes of NPK and Urea fertiliser respectively were dispatched to various markets across the country, representing 90.6 percent, which was not the case during the same period last year.

“The Fisp programme was launched in October and it has taken us a month to make such a success. We are making the very last dispatches and we hope to finish the whole distribution and selling processes by December end,” explained Tsoka.

He, however, credited the desirable progress to the cooperation that existed between the ministry, the suppliers, transporters and the marketing agencies such as Admarc and Smallholder Farmers Fertiliser Revolving Fund of Malawi (SFFRFM).

This year, 1.5 million farmers are expected to benefit from the fertiliser subsidy programme.

Davie Mwanjasi, marketing officer for Mponela Admarc Depot, said all the fertiliser which was allocated to the market had been sold to the farmers.

He acknowledged improvement in the way the programme had been handled this year and called for more systems apart from buying by village, which has managed to arrest some of the challenges faced in the implementation of the programme previously.

“We had an allocation of 150 metric tonnes Urea and 150 metric tonnes NPK and I can confidently say that we have finished selling to the farmers who registered,” he said.

A resident of Sanga Village in Traditional Authority (T/A) Kalonga in Salima, Elled Hedson, hailed government for expediting the distribution and selling exercise as well as implementing the buying by village system, which she said has enabled everyone in the village to access the cheap fertiliser this year.

Village Head Sanga said a committee has been established to ensure that no one sells the cheap fertiliser.

Fisp was introduced in 2005 to enable poor Malawians access the cheap fertiliser to improve crop production at household level.