Member of Parliament for Salima North Kaphamtengo Yona has vowed to continue encouraging Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp) beneficiaries in his area to share fertiliser.
Government dejects the sharing of the fertilisers as it defeats the purpose of the programme, which is to increase crop productivity for the individual beneficiaries’ households.
Yona told Malawi News Agency (Mana) on Thursday that the subsidy fertiliser is not enough for the people in his area so he didn’t care whether the sharing will affect the impact of the programme.
“Leaving some people out of the programme affect sdevelopment in the area because those left out stop participating in development projects as a form of protest, so it’s better we share the little and have happy people,” said Yona.
He said it is better to please the people than to have a goal which will take ages to achieve.
In a separate interview, the deputy programme manager for Salima Agriculture Development Division (ADD), Wellington Phewa, said government wants individual beneficiaries to apply all the fertilisers so that they increase their yield and eventually graduate from the programme.
“The fact is that when the beneficiaries share their fertilisers with others they remain with little which cannot be sufficient to use in their gardens. This means that they will not realise enough yields as government wishes,” said Phewa.
He stressed that if the beneficiaries will continue sharing the inputs, the programme will not achieve its goals and its impact will not be seen at all.
“We know that the sharing of the little resources is good socially, but if we want the programme to achieve its goals and help people to move out of poverty then there should be one beneficiary at a time,” he added.
Phewa said leaders should rather help in sensitising the people that sharing of the fertilizer affects the whole process as the beneficiaries do not improve in any way.
