Govt says FISP is progressing well in North Western Province

Govt says FISP is progressing well in North Western Province
By Creavat Chituta in Solwezi
Sun 27 Dec. 2009, 04:00 CAT

THE ministry of agriculture says the Farmer Input Support Programme-FISP input distribution for 2009/2010 farming season is progressing well in North Western Province.

Ministry of agriculture and cooperatives - trade and entrepreneurship agri-business and marketing principal economist Anyawa Mutemwa confirmed to NAIS in Solwezi that this farming season was promising good yield because farmers were responding well to government support through utilisation of inputs they received.

He hailed the overall performance of the programme in terms of crop stand in the province as being good and the impact on food security would be positive.
Mutemwa advised farmers to treat farming as a business and learn to prioritise activities in order to achieve best crop yields from their farming business.

He however, confirmed that the former Fertiliser Support Programme-FSP loan recoveries for 2002/2003 farming season in North Western Province was good saying about 80 per cent recoveries had been made so far and described the move to be progressing well.

And farmers have appealed to the government to revert to the old input package of a hectare if farmers were to be food secure and economically empowered.

Meanwhile, Seed Control and Certification Institute chief seeds officer Edward Zulu said the seed quality supplied to farmers was good adding that the only challenge farmers had was late application of fertiliser and failure to weed fields early saying there was need for officers to be advising farmers on cultural practices.

Zulu also acknowledged that the ministry of agriculture was aware of the difficulties farmers were facing in terms of transportation of inputs due to poor road infrastructure especially in Zambezi and Chavuma west banks.

"Yes as the ministry, we are aware of the difficulties farmers are facing when transporting inputs due to poor state of road infrastructure especially in Zambezi and Chavuma West bank," said Zulu.
And provincial agricultural coordinator Charles Sondashi expressed happiness in the way the exercise of input distribution was handled adding that it was incident free.