Minister of Agriculture, Sam Kawale is optimistic that his ministry will meet the 40-day target set by President Lazarus Chakwera for the ministry to deliver Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) Fertiliser to all selling points across the country.
Kawale was speaking Tuesday at Smallholder Farmers Fertiliser Revolving Fund of Malawi in Neno Depot when he inspected the AIP redeeming exercise progress.
He said since President Lazarus Chakwera launched the AIP programme on 20th October, 2023 at Kavidebwere Primary school ground in Kasungu, over 21,000 beneficiaries have already redeemed their fertilisers.
“The progress might seem small but these are great steps because we had to make sure that all challenges that were experienced in previous years are sorted,” Kawale said.
He said since they were given a target, his ministry is having management meetings every Monday where they discus delivery plans and will continue holding such meetings to review the progress made and to plan for the week ahead.
He added that they have managed to clean the database of the most districts such as Balaka, Chiradzulu, Chitipa, Dowa East and west, Kasungu, Likoma Mulanje, Mwanza, Neno , Nkhata Bay Nkhotakota, Nsanje, Phalombe, Rumphi, Salima, Thyolo, Zomba, Mzimba south and Karonga where beneficiaries have started redeeming their fertilisers.
“We are remaining with Lilongwe west and East, Chikwawa and Blantyre as we are finishing cleaning the system and uploading our portal so that they can start selling fertiliser to beneficiaries,” he said.
The minister said as of October 30, Malawi had over 1,800 metric tonnes of AIP fertiliser which has landed in the country and the commodity keeps on coming.
He said government has taken heed the call of Malawians to start distribution with hard to reach areas and that is why this year, they started with Karonga, Chitipa, Ntchisi, some parts of Dowa, Mangochi, some parts of Chikwawa and Neno and the plan is to complete the redeeming process before the rains start so that all the 149, 000 tonnes for this year are distributed.
He therefore assured AIP beneficiaries to come forward as over 30,000 metric tonnes is already in the country and on market saying more is coming.
“Now there are 378 selling points, 167 in the Southern Region, 136 Central and 75 in the North and government is adding additional depots but also wants to add 200 physical places including adding mobile markets at group village headman level,” he added.
Acting Traditional Authority Chekucheku expressed gratitude to the government as farmers have started redeeming their fertiliser in time which is a good development compared to last year when the process was delayed.
Reported by Salome Gangire
