Farmer President Hichilema has let down small-holder farmers
By John Phiri
Unless he reaches out for a last minute, unorthodox solution, there will be the inescapable conclusion that President Hakainde Hichilema, a farmer himself, has failed the government-supported small scale farmers in his first full year in office.
As fertiliser distribution day of Tuesday, November 8, 2022, announced by Vice President Mutale Nalumango lapsed, and Minister of Agriculture Mtolo Phiri brought fresh assurance that the exercise would start in all districts the following Thursday, it was clear the government was trying hard to put a brave face on what has become a sure crisis.
It was a sheepish Minister of Agriculture Phiri who attempted to present 50% delivery of farmer input support programme (FISP) fertiliser and seed countrywide, as a resounding success.
It is a failure, especially that the very unpredictable severely shortened rain season has already entered week three.
State media tried gallantly on Wednesday evening, but struggled to paint the picture of a successful fertiliser distribution programme, relying largely on file pictures.
Kabwe Disctrict Commissioner Lennox Shimwambwa was one up on the State media since he, at least, presented a live picture of some bags of fertiliser, resulting in his embarrassing suggestion that this operation constituted timely distribution.
For Shimwambwa himself stated in the ZNBC television presentation that what was received in Kabwe by Wednesday, 9 November, 2022, was 19, 140 bags of compound D fertiliser, out of 62, 292 bags that Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia (NCZ).
The simple question is if NCZ has taken nearly a month and a half to deliver 19,140 bags of fertiliser from its plant in Kafue to Kabwe, which is on two of Zambia’s major urban highways, should it not be a source of alarm that more than two thirds of its contracted consignment is still undelivered?
Secondly, if this is the calibre of fertiliser suppliers that Minister Phiri and his Permanent Secretary Green Mbozi picked for the 2022/23 farming season, what performance should we expect from those suppliers who have to traverse difficult road terrain in rural areas where the majority of the FISP-dependent vulnerable farmers are to be found?
As for Minister Phiri, it is easy to debunk his feeble assurance that farmers were to begin collecting their inputs from depots in all the districts starting Thursday, 10 November, 2022.
The final lists of beneficiaries have not yet been finalised and announced to members of the cooperatives that government forced to be registered for this purpose.
Had this been so, Copperbelt Minister Elisha Matambo would not have summoned relevant government and party officials to scrutinise “proposed lists” last week.
A visit by the author to some cooperative offices in Rufunsa and Chongwe, the same Thursday Phiri claimed distribution would start, found that farmers were still awaiting information on whether they had qualified to access government-subsidised FISP inputs or not!
At one of the offices at an Aggregator’s compound, one of the anxious farmers asked the author:” Boss how can the Minister say we start getting fertiliser today? But we are still waiting for our names to be announced as successful.”
What this means is that this farming season’s fiasco has simply entered its phase three: phase one was Ministry of Agriculture’s fumbling of the tender process to install its “new boys”; phase two was ” the confessions of an incompetent supplier ” (Agrizam Investment), and the censure letters sent to Agrizam and Fertiliser, Seed and Grain (FSG).
Phase three is bound to bring the most damage if President Hichilema’s government does not quickly acknowledge this impending disaster and seek help from capable individuals and entities.
At this late hour Minister Phiri has unleashed further confusion by proclaiming that the government will set aside the manual it so elaborately weaved, with the help of the new private sector fertiliser gurus and Mbozi and company.
Meaning? The so-called cleaning up that Phiri oversold to the Zambian public, meant to end abuse of FISP, which resulted in a system where each recipients was to present themselves individually to collect their allocation, would be set aside.
Another aspect of Phiri’s much touted cleaning up of the database was to end in the removal from the roll of farmers who had become permanent beneficiaries of FISP fertiliser and other inputs.
Since in many districts, including those on the Copperbelt, if Matambo’s exercise has not been concluded, the final lists have not been handed down to cooperatives, it means for the unsuccessful farmers 2022/23 farming season is thoroughly compromised.
Because those edited out of the final list, predictably, cannot quickly mobilise finances to buy fertiliser at the commercial price, they will have to do without it, which will result in reduced yields.
What will follow? Multiplied incidents of the kind that was reported in Kapichila in Lundazi, where farmers “fought” over fertiliser.
180 farmers there had been allocated 15 packs and attempts to effect a reasonable sharing mechanism threatened to cause physical mayhem.
Why?
Under the new system, it appears newly registered cooperatives are being allocated packs, without regard to the number of individuals registered as applying for the subsidy.
For example, in Rufunsa one cooperative visited had 80 members registered, 60 of whom had already paid the K400. But the cooperative is understood to have been allocated 20 packs.
If this exercise had been concluded earlier in the season, such allocations would not have caused significant shock to the lives of these vulnerable farmers.
But being left out at this late hour will be a big blow to the affected small scale farmers.
There are two things that can help salvage this farming season.
The first one is an Act of God – that the rains should continue and linger beyond February.
But this would only be a partial solution because it would simply buy the snails-pace fertiliser distribution exercise some time.
It will, however, not cure the craziness of meagre allocations to an over-expectant population of farmers, man y of who believed the United Party for National Development (UPND) election promise to give farmers eight bags of fertiliser each.
The second is an outside-the-box drive by the Executive to seek the assistance of capable Zambians with the requisite experience, both in the public service and in the private sector.
Minister Phiri, acknowledged that President Hichilema is breathing fire …. now says his Ministry will hand-walk the suppliers to ensure they complete distribution by end of November is hardly reassuring.
The reason for this is that the failure by the hand-picked suppliers to distribute fertiliser over a period of one and half months is now raising one question: do these suppliers really have fertiliser in the country?
President Hichilema should get an answer to this question, and then do whatever it takes to resolve this problem and avert disaster.
It is his credentials that are on the line.
About the author.
John Phiri is Former Editor In Chief of The Times of Zambia.