By NAMO PHIRI
GOVERNMENT had spent $369, 073, 965.74 for the procurement of fertilizer from the estimated budget of $ 522,461,340.00 saving a total sum of US $153, 387, 374.26, Agriculture Minister Mtolo Phiri had disclosed.
Delivering a ministerial statement in parliament, Mr Phiri attributed the reduction in the sum spent on buying fertiliser to the fact that the commodity is being purchased locally.
The criteria the government will use in the 2022 / 2023 farming season to qualify for the programme an individual farmer he said needed to be a member of a duly registered farmer organisation cooperatives, the co-operative farmer organisation should have a registration certificate issued by the Department of Cooperatives, under the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprise Development/ or Registrar of Societies, and also be a registered small-scale farmer actively involved in farming within the camp coverage area whilst cultivating not more than five acres.
The minister clarified that an individual beneficiary farmer will not be required to pay any other money apart from the K400 farmer contribution and a voter’s card was not a requirement to be registered or/and benefit from the programme.
The minister also disclosed that 110241434, farmers had been targeted for the 2022/2023 farming season using the direct Input supply modality.
This entails that all inputs will be procured by the government, he said, and the total tonnage of fertiliser for this farming season was 3O7, 33O.2O MT of which 153,665.10 was Urea and 153,665.1O was Compound D.