Gov’t bails out commercial farmers
Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture Development and Food Security, Jimmy Opelo said government would disburse a total of P120 million which will be issued to commercial farmers to alleviate them from the impact of Covid- 19.
In his national update on Monday, Opelo said government has issued this money in partnership with the National Development Bank to assist all farmers across the country. “We have partnered with NDB so they can assist us on how we will disburse the money. This will be given to all farmers across all levels in the country and would not be charged interest.”
Out of this money, P100 million will be given to commercial farmers as working capital. This will be interest free while the P20 million would be issued under Horticulture-Sector Impact Accelerated Scheme as a subsidy to fresh produce farmers ( fruits and vegetables). “This category of farmers will pay 50 percent of the money.”
He said the impact of Covid- 19 on the agriculture sector is not heavy because there was increased harvest but the government decided to come up with these initiatives to encourage farmers to continue ploughing and increase their production. “The sector has not been affected by Covid- 19 because we have reaped increased harvest last year despite the outbreak of crop diseases and various pests and Covid- 19 which lead to movement restrictions and lockdown.”
Last year commercial farmers assisted by NDB produced 65 000 tonnes of cereal which is an increase from 45 000 tonnes during the 2018/ 19 season. However, this contributes about 15 percent of the national demand. The national demand for most of agricultural commodities continues to be satisfied through imports. This is mainly due to other related challenges such as climate change and infancy of the sector. This is equivalent to 14.8 percent of the national demand.
Government is currently reviewing its Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agriculture Development ( ISPAAD). The new developments will include de- bushing, shifting the weighting of the subsidy towards more outputs and realignment of fields to enable critical infrastructure developments such as digitization, roads and water among others.