By KASONDE KASONDE –
OVER 25,000 farmers on the Farmer Input Support Programme (FSIP) in Kabwe District have been allocated 56,908 metric tonnes of Compound D and 56,908 metric tonnes of Urea fertiliser for the 2014 2015 farming season.
A total of 28,454 farmers will benefit from the allocation.
Kabwe District Commissioner Patrick Chishala said the vision of the Government is for the district to produce food enough to ensure dometic and national food security as well as ensure that farmers increase their incomes through market sales.
Speaking on Monday when he officially flagged off the distribution of the farming inputs for 2014-2015 farming season, Mr Chishala said this year more cooperatives and farmer groups have been considered for the programme from 25,530 to 28,454 beneficiaries.
Mr Chishala added that the programme aims at holistically developing the agriculture sector through improving access of small scale farmers to agricultural inputs by the Government covering part of the cost as a way of risk sharing mechanism.
He said the farmers in the district would receive a pack of four bags of fertiliser comprising of two bags of Basal dressing and two bags of top dressing fertilisers with one 10Kg bag of maize seed.
“This is proof that more small-scale farmers in the district are being introduced to improved seed varieties and improved technologies that are necessary to increased production and increased economic benefits,” Mr Chishala said.
Mr Chishala said the benefiting farmers only contributed K90 per 50Kg bag of fertiliser and K40 per 10Kg bag of maize seed and K70 per 10Kg bag groundnut seed.
He said in addition to the subsidy of the inputs Government would also cater for the cost of transportation of all inputs from the holding warehouse to various points of farmer’s destinations.
Mr Chishala said the Government is hopeful that the programme would introduce more suppliers of inputs to the farming community in which the private sector growth would be enhanced to the remotest areas of the district.