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By Wezzie Gausi:
As the government is set to roll out the Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) nationwide, the Ministry of Agriculture says some of the markets belonging to Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) will be used by Smallholder Farmers Fertiliser Revolving Fund of Malawi (SFFRFM).
This comes at a time there is uncertainty surrounding the role of Admarc in implementing AIP in the 2023-24 calendar year.
Secretary for Agriculture Dickxie Kampani told The Daily Times that the new arrangement has been made to ensure that people access inputs without hiccups.
He further said each constituency would have at least two markets.
The principal secretary also said phones have been programmed to respect constituency boundaries when it comes to AIP implementation.
“The list of identified markets was shared with members of Parliament for comments and the comments were also shared with SFFRFM for action. These markets will act as a hub/nucleus for mobile vending.
“This time around, each market will have two sales clerks to ease pressure and congestion at the selling point,” Kampani said.
Meanwhile, Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture Chairperson Sameer Suleman has said the arrangement looks ideal.
He, however, said the purpose of the arrangement would be defeated is there is no fertiliser in the designated markets.
“Yes, the number of markets has been increased but how sure are we that these markets will have fertiliser for people to buy?
“Looking at what happened to AIP last year, we, as a committee, foresee another mess this year, especially after considering the pace at which things related to AIP are being implemented this year,” Suleman said.
The fertiliser supply for this season has dropped by 6.8 percent compared to the last growing season.
