Home | Business | DEADLOCK OVER FARMING INPUTS DEADLINE

DEADLOCK OVER FARMING INPUTS DEADLINE

01/11/2021 08:09:00 BY ASHMOND NZIMA

Font size:

MBABANE – Government and representatives of the farmers’ union could not agree over the deadline extension for payment of inputs in the subsidy programme.

The Ministry of Agriculture, through the National Maize Corporation (NMC) implemented a multi-million Emalangeni farming input subsidy programme. The initiative provides inputs to farmers at a subsidised cost. In the past week, NMC released a list of 36 (initially 33) agro dealers that have been authorised to supply farmers with inputs for the ploughing season.

The two apex bodies of farmer organisations, Eswatini National Agricultural Union (ESNAU) and ESWAFCU, in a joint statement, highlighted a series of challenges that were derailing the programme, calling for an extension of the deadline for payment of inputs from yesterday to November. ESWAFCU is the Eswatini Farmers Co-Operative Union.

“The time provided for farmers to make payments for the subsidy this was shorter compared to previous growing seasons. Since the deadline was October 31, it meant farmers had less time to organise themselves and make payments. Furthermore, there was a week-long travel restriction (from October 12 to 19, 2021) due to political unrest where farmers could not move to make payments for the subsidy,” said the unions. The unions further decried the delay in announcing the NMC authorised agro-dealers where farmers can redeem their farming inputs. Farmers were advised on October 18, 2021 about the agro-dealers while in previous seasons the announcement was made much earlier.

“This has compelled all the beneficiaries of the subsidy programme to start planting late in the season, which will negatively affect yields especially for long maturing maize varieties,” highlighted the statement.

Authorised

The two unions also alleged that the majority of NMC authorised agro-dealers did not have farming inputs in stock. As a result many farmers who have paid for the subsidy were not getting farming inputs from the agro-dealers. This further delayed the planting activity and compromised the effort of farmers and government.

Bongani Masuku, who is Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, said the deadline remained unchanged. On the thorny issue of top-ups, he said the total budget for each farmer was E7 500 including the subsidy. He said if farmers needed seeds outside the budget and inputs, then top-up made sense. He conceded that not all seeds were covered by the programme due to costs. Masuku also disclosed that there were challenges on the availability of fertilisers nationwide. Both ESNAU and ESWAFCU said they had separately engaged NMC on some of the aforementioned challenges to find solutions. The unions have made several recommendations for both the current and upcoming farming seasons.

“We call upon NMC to timely commence and complete all tender processes for engaging agro-dealers that will be participating in the subsidy programme. “We also call upon NMC to timely advice farmers about the agro-dealers that are authorised for the subsidy programme,” said the farmers unions. With reports suggesting that some dealerships were charging top-up fees, it was stressed that authorised agro-dealers should not be demanding top-up fees from farmers. “We call upon the re-imbursement of farmers who have already paid top-up fees and/or received less than 25kg from the affected agro-dealers. We call upon all authorised agro-dealers to timely prepare for the start of the growing season, and make sure that they have adequate stock to supply farming inputs,” said the unions.

There were also concerns that was no engagement of farmers, in the particular ESNAU and ESWAFCU, after or before each programme, where farmers could share their experiences and present their position on the effectiveness of the initiative. Such a feedback, according to the two unions, could help in the improvement of the programme to the best interest of the end farmer. In response, NMC said agro-dealers were not supposed to charge top-ups. NMC had said in instances where seed variety or any of the inputs was above the total package, agro-dealers had a responsibility to engage the farmers for the best alternative within the bouquet of inputs.

Meanwhile, the inputs include white maize, sugar beans, sorghum, insecticides and pesticides. Farmers are advised to bring along their original deposit slips together with their identity documents (IDs) to the listed agro-dealers of their choice. Meanwhile, the costs for the inputs have increased this year by E500 on average. For maize seeds and fertiliser, farmers were to pay E3 500. Those planting sugar beans paid the highest amount (E4 000) while sorghum farmers forked out half the amount. For tractor services, each farmer is to pay E270 per hour.