FRA completes paying farmers

FRA completes paying farmers
By Jack Zimba
Sunday May 11, 2008 [04:00]

AGRICULTURE minister Sara Sayifwanda has said the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) has completed paying all the farmers it owed money from theprevious marketing season.
She said the only pending payments were awaiting verification by police. Sayifwanda assured farmers that her ministry had put everything in place to ensure a smooth and efficient distribution of farming inputs to the farmers.

Last year the ministry experienced a hitch in its Fertiliser Support Programme (FSP) when it failed to secure more funding to buy inputs for the programme.

However, Sayifwanda said that was an administrative problem and that it had now been rectified and assured the farmers that things would go well this season.
“Everything is going on well for this season and I think the programme will be well managed. There is no problem so far,” she said.

In his submission to the Parliamentary Committee on Economic Affairs and Labour recently, secretary to the treasury Evans Chibiliti admitted that there had been a problem in funding the FSP because the Ministry of Agriculture had requested for additional funding late.

And Zambia National Farmers Union president Guy Robinson said the union was having discussions with the Ministry of Agriculture over the reduction in the allocation towards the FSP in this year’s budget.

“We feel that the reduction is not in the best interest of the farmers and it is worrying us,” he said.

The government allocated K185.0 billion for the FSP in this year’s budget.
Robinson also said the union had last week contacted all its members in 49 districts to get an update on the payments by the FRA to the farmers.