Agriculture Minister Sam Kawale has said his ministry will miss the 40-day deadline given by President Lazarus Chakwera for the completion of this year’s Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP).
The 40-day period, which Chakwera declared when he launched this year’s programme in Kasungu, expires Thursday.
But briefing reporters in Lilongwe Thursday, Kawale said authorities have set a new AIP deadline of before Christmas.
Kawale attributed the hiccups in the supply chain to challenges beyond his ministry’s control.
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He blamed the delays in the completion of the programme on the inability of the Reserve Bank of Malawi to make payments to suppliers due to shortage of forex as well as the devaluation of the Kwacha, which has had a knock-on effect on pricing of the commodity.
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“Upon our presentation of these two disruptions to His Excellency, he directed that we consult with the Ministry of Finance to calculate how much time Treasury would need to address the forex delays and avail supplementary funds to cover the shortfalls caused by the devaluation.
“He also directed that once we have guidance from Treasury on these matters, we should recalculate how much time has been lost from the 40-day plan and extend the period of distribution beyond the 40 days as needed. After consulting the Treasury, our new target is to complete the exercise before Christmas,” Kawale said.
He could, however, not indicate how much additional billions of Kwacha will be needed to cover the gap created by the devaluation.
The minister said government had planned to distribute a total of three million bags of fertiliser in this year’s AIP, but so far, it has distributed 1,160,829 bags, representing just over 30 percent.
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He said his ministry first focused on deliveries to hard-to-reach areas such as Usisya in Nkhata Bay, Nthalire and Misuku in Chitipa, Likoma, Makanjira in Mangochi, Lupachi in Nkhotakota and Khosolo in Mzimba.
Kawale said a total of 29,929.58 metric tonnes (mt) or 598,591 bags, of fertiliser from suppliers within Meridian Group started to be collected and distributed to retailing areas yesterday.
He added that a total of 26,789mt (535,780 bags) of fertiliser was paid for through letters of credit at Ecobank on November 24, 2023, and are being distributed to retailing points across the country.
“A total of 5,200mt (104,000 bags) has started arriving in the country. This is under the Japanese grant. This fertiliser started arriving one month earlier. [Some] 6,000mt (120,000 bags) are being bought under the International Fund for Agricultural Development. Procurements are being concluded now.
“The ministry is working on the financing and payments for the remaining 24,340 (486,800 bags) of fertiliser to complete the 150,000mt (3,000,000 bags) target,” Kawale said.
Civil Society Agriculture Network (Cisanet) board chairperson, Herbert Chagona, said his organisation appreciates efforts by the Ministry of Agriculture to ensure that this year’s AIP is implemented successfully.
Chagona said Cisanet is also aware of many other challenges that could have been avoided.
“The directive given by the President was in consideration of the many hiccups that may occur as a result of some delays. Such directives must be taken seriously because farmers have been expecting this programme to be implemented without such challenges.
“This could have been one of the key priorities by the ministry and even doing much earlier than what the President provided. We could have learned from the past mistakes,” Chagona said.
Apart from fertiliser not being available in several selling points, other challenges in this year’s AIP include network hitches.
Government trimmed the number of farmers to benefit from the programme from last year’s 2.5 million to 1.5 million.
Out of the 1.5 million farming households, 1.49 million are expected to access two 50-kilogramme bags of NPK and Urea and a pack of seed each while 9,750 households will access two female goats each.
The farmers are supposed to contribute K15,000 for a bag and K3,500 per pack of seed. Those accessing the goats are paying K15,000 for each of them.
This year, government is targeting “productive farmers”, moving away from vulnerable households that will be “taken care of in social cash transfer programmes and others”.
