AGRICULTURE MINISTER, EXPLAIN THE CONTENT OF COMPREHESIVE FARMER SUPPORT PROGRAMME

IN the 2023 national budget, Government pledged to reform the Farmer Input Support Programme into a Comprehensive Farmer Support Programme.

Judging by the chaotic management of the 2023-2024 input support pregame, the comprehensive reform process should be freezing in comatose.

My concern however is the narrow conceptual framework of comprehensive farmer support that the government promised to carry out.

If the government supports farmers with inputs for the purpose of diversity and increased production but then leaves out market support for certain crops such as soya beans, as is the case now of the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) not prepared to buy soya in this crop marketing season, the question is where then is COMPEHENSIVE farmer support in this equation ?

My basic understanding of the comprehensive reform package is to review the supply and demand equation and deal with the gaps that exist on both ends. At least we know that governments in the global north, United States, Canada and Europe buy crops from farmers when there are market failures just to guarantee the farmers with income.

In these countries, agro-markets are even well developed than here in Zambia, yet governments play a crucial market role as the buyer of last resort. But here where the farmers have no sufficient capital for further investment in export market exploration, government abandons them to their own fate.

What Government is seeking is for the hardworking farmers to kneel before you and beg. This is not treating our hardworking farmers with respect. There is no need to have another controversy here.

We have had enough, we began with single sourcing of fertiliser, moved to delayed and poor distribution of inputs and now selective crop marketing.

If the decision of not buying soya beans is from the IMF as a condition around debt restructuring, Government must disobey that order and buy the crop otherwise it is pushing our farmers into the severe debt and social protection safety net.