No hope for fertiliser delivery in Central Province – Howard Kunda

THERE is no sign that fertiliser and other farming inputs will be in the warehouses in Central Province any time soon and farmers are in limbo because they do not know when government will deliver the inputs, Howard Kunda has said.

Mr Kunda says zambians should brace themselves for hunger for the 2023/2024 season because government has by chaotically managed the delivery and distribution of fertilizer and other farming inputs despite numerous assurances from President Hakainde Hichilema that the commodity was being delivered

Mr Kunda, the former MMD Muchinga Member of Parliament says Central Province as a whole has not started receiving fertiliser and that farmers are worried that they would not be able to access inputs now that the rains had arrived.

He said he had been visiting a number of farming blocs in the Province and that all the beneficiaries of the Farmer Input Support Programme were in limbo as there was no sign that the fertiliser would be in the warehouses in the region.

President Hichilema has been assuring farmers that fertilizer was being delivered but there is still an outcry from across the country over the non-delivery of the commodity weeks into the rainy season.

Mr Kunda said what was most worrying was the change of policy where farmers will have to personally collect their inputs using their own resources and that those in the remote parts of the country risk not receiving the inputs which he says would grossly affect their yield next year.

He said farmers had prepared their fields but that the inputs had not been delivered which was causing a lot of anxiety among farming community.

Mr Kunda said having been in government for a year, the new dawn should have known and prepared for the 2022/2023 farming season and deliver the fertilizer on time.