1, 000 Vubwi farmers stuck over E-vouchers

ABOUT 1, 000 farmers in Vubwi district of the Eastern Province have not accessed their E-vouchers to enable them get fertiliser and seed from the farmer input support program.

The farmers who said they had not been given the electronic vouchers to transact yet, said they feared that they would be struck by hunger in the coming year due to the fact that the growing window had now passed.

Mr Alfred Mkandawire lamented that the farmers have been spending money moving from their villages to the district offices to seek address from the authorities over their plight. Speaking in a telephone interview with the Daily Nation, Mr Mkandawire appealed to the government to intervene by monitoring the activities of the banks and financial institutions in the areas assigned.

“There are some people that are receiving their inputs because they have their cards loaded but some of us are not because our cards malfunctioned and have not been replaced,“he said. He lamented that since the cards were said to be in Lusaka for replacement last month the farmers had not received any feedback from their banks.

Mr. Mkandawire said the planting season was slowly coming to an end, adding that there was potential for the area to be hit by hunger due to the delay.

He appealed to the government to come to the aid of the farmers and support the growth of the agriculture sector.

A fortnight ago the, Minister of Finance Felix Mutati and his agriculture counterpart Dora Siliya summoned financial institution to chart the way forward on the access to funds by the farmers.