By Isaac Salima:
Fertiliser Association of Malawi (Fam) has painted a gloomy picture on the availability of the soil enriching product in this year’s farming season.
The association’s figures indicate that, as at October 1 2024, the country had 121,946 metric tonnes (mt) of fertiliser in stock.
From the figure, 62,622mt is Urea while 59,324mt is NPK.
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The country is also expecting 118,990mt of fertiliser which is on foreign soil, notably Mozambique, Tanzania while the other fertiliser is on water.
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Fam Executive Officer Mbawaka Phiri said Wednesday that Malawi consumes between 350,000mt and 400,000mt of fertiliser per year.
“Forex is the main challenge and has been for the past few years. Companies are struggling to get financing from banks because forex is scarce.
“Additionally, the cost of forex is also high because of the scarcity. It is difficult to say [if members can meet demand] but a lot of our association members continue to struggle to meet their forex requirements to purchase fertiliser,” Phiri said.
She added that with the farming season looming, there would not be enough time for fertiliser imports.
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“There is no time to import stock for the first application of fertiliser. The import process takes three to four months. So whatever the awarded companies have is what would be used,” she said.
Phiri could also not tell when the stock in transit could be expected in the country.
“Each company has different logistics timelines and different financing arrangements. The association doesn’t order as a block; they [members] order individually. Keep in mind [that] the whole region is entering the planting season and all the landlocked countries use the same ports. So, it takes longer to get fertiliser into the country as we approach the end of the year,” Phiri said.
Her remarks could be bad news to farmers as the country is almost in the farming season.
The development comes at a time this year’s Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) is on the verge of facing fertiliser availability challenges.
On Monday, Agriculture Minister Sam Kawale said the country had secured 39,354.3mt of fertiliser for the programme.
The figure is less than half of the 104,845mt required for this year’s AIP.
The development means the country has to look for the remaining 62 percent of required fertiliser for the programme and other quantities of fertiliser for farmers who will not benefit from the initiative.
About 1.07 million smallholder farmers are expected to benefit from this year’s AIP.
However the minister indicated that the programme was expected to roll out next week.
Meanwhile, chairperson for the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture Sameer Suleman has said it is unfortunate that farmers will be at the receiving end of all this.
Recently, our spot-checks in several districts in the country indicated that prices of the soil enrichment product had gone up by an average of K10,000 per 50 kilogramme (kg) bag.
A 50kg bag of NPK, which was selling at around K83,000, is now selling at K93,000 while that of Urea is being sold at K90,000 from K82,000.
A 50kg bag of CAN is selling at around K83,000 from around K76,000.
Farmers Union of Malawi Chief Executive Officer Jacob Nyirongo described the development as sad news for farmers.
“It means most of the farmers will not be able to buy fertiliser which might, in the end, affect the output. This can also affect the availability of maize next year. It is not only prices of fertiliser that have gone up but also those of seeds as well. So if a farmer does not have money to buy fertiliser and seeds, definitely yields will be affected,” Nyirongo said.
