By KASONDE KASONDE –
MINISTRY of Agriculture Permanent Secretary Julius Shawa has said more than K30 million is required to combat the menace of armyworms that have ravaged close to 70,000 hectares of maize fields.
Mr Shawa said the ministry had submitted a budget of K36 million to the Ministry of Finance for the procurement of chemicals that would be distributed to the affected farmers.
He said 80 per cent of the money would be used for the procurement of chemicals and the rest would be used to purchase protective clothing and sprayers.
Mr Shawa said working with the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU), the ministry had set up a call centre for affected farmers and members of the public to use whenever they required information on the army worm.
“Government is putting up a number of measures to help the farmers fight the army worm and we are encouraging the affected farmers to purchase the chemicals using their electronic voucher (e-voucher) cards,” Mr Shawa said.
He said the ministry was also posting messages on its blog on what effective chemicals the farmers should buy in the fight against the army worm.
Mr Shawa said the ministry was engaging banks on a daily basis to ensure that the e-voucher cards were activated to allow farmers redeem their inputs on time and that the momentum had picked up.
He said some areas had slow connectivity that delayed the process but currently over 80 per cent of the farmers on the e-voucher had received their farming inputs.
Mr Shawa said the e-voucher was working well with a few challenges as there were over 1,300 dealers with 500 outlets across the country.