FARMING INPUT SUBSIDY BENEFICIARIES DROPPED

MBABANE – Blow for farmers as the total number of those who will benefit from the farming input subsidy has dropped when compared to the previous season.

Yesterday, the National Maize Co-operation (NMC) met with some of the authorised agro-dealers to inform them about how they performed in the previous season and what was expected in the upcoming season. NMC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mavela Vilane stated that the reason for the drop was that in the previous year government had received a loan assistance of E112 million from the African Development Bank.

Benefit

He said the loan made it possible for the 11 518 farmers to benefit. He said unfortunately this year it was not the case hence the decline of beneficiaries. Vilane stated that this year, government had prepared E32.2 million for the farming input subsidy programme. In the past weeks, the Minister of Agriculture, Jabulani Mabuza, announced that this season, government will pay 50 per cent towards the programme and the farmer pays the other 50 per cent. This means that for maize farming inputs, a farmer would have to fork out at least E5 700, E4 600 beans and E3 000 for sorghum.  

Vilane said they were hoping to pay all the authorised agro-dealers, even those who were owed for the previous season.  Vilane further announced that farmers who have registered and paid for the subsidy programme may begin collecting their input as of September 1, from any of the authorised agro-dealers. The CEO mentioned that yesterday’s meeting was also meant to get the agro-dealers ready to supply the farmers with the necessary farming inputs. He stated that these dealers were the ones with a two year contract with NMC, which is set to elapse next year. It was stated that the official list of the dealers would be announced next week since it was subject to finalisation.

Support

On the tractor hire service programme, Vilane said they were ready to support farmers as at least 80 per cent of their available tractors were running and ready to work. He stated that they would also meet with other private tractor owners for them to provide their tractors as well. It is worth noting that this year, there are changes in the tractor hire service as the fares had gone up to E580 per hour. Government has committed to pay at least E180 for the tractor hire service and farmers would pay E400. The Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Agriculture, Sydney Simelane, recently told this publication that government had set aside a budget of at least E10 million for the tractor hire service programme.  

The minister added that his ministry had also considered support for commercial/large scale farmers. He said the large scale farmers would be taken care of by the Commercial Maize Revolving fund (Hambubuye). He encouraged all farmers to take advantage of this initiative and other commercial financing schemes. “The input subsidy programme is, therefore, intended for small scale farmers and, as such, will only benefit farmers with one hectare or less, while those with more hectares are to make use of the other schemes like Hambubuye,” said the minister. He said the ministry, therefore, did not encourage and expect farmers to benefit from both the input subsidies and the commercial production schemes that have been put in place.

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