More join calls in urging Government to ignore IMF advise on Agriculture subsidies in Zambia
An organisation working with small scale farmers in rural Zambia has charged that the proposal from the International Monetary Fund that the Zambian should abandon its agricultural subsidy programme is ill timed.
Farmer Organisation Support Programme Executive Director Michael Muleba said in an interview that the advice from the IMF should be ignored by the Zambian government.
Mr. Muleba said abandoning agricultural subsidies for small scale farmers would be catastrophic for the country’s food security situation.
He said the bulk of Zambia’s food is produced by small scale farmers who are the greatest beneficiaries of government’s subsidy programmes such as the Farmer Input Support Programme.
Mr. Muleba said the proposals from multilateral institutions such as the IMF should be dismissed if such proposals do not have the best interests of the nation.
“70 percent of our food is grown by the poor farmers and they are the ones that these same subsidies target, the IMF and all these donor institutions such understand that agricultural in Zambia is mainly rural based and done by small peasants and they surely need government support,” Mr. Muleba said.
He said every nation in the world subsidies agricultural production to a certain extent adding that Zambia infact needs to increase the amount of support it gives to local farmers.
“Instead of abandoning the subsidy programme, what we need to start focusing on is fine tuning the FISP programme so that we target the real farmers as beneficiaries.”
Mr. Muleba was commenting in the wake of an IMF statement urging the Zambian government to abandon its agricultural subsidy programme saying it was too costly to the treasury.
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I don’t understand how the IMF can advise our govt to do such a thing. In the EU agro subsidies are so huge that a farmer doesn’t even need to sell his produce to earn a profit. That is one of the reasons food is so cheap here. Chiluba did the same thing when MMD came into power and it was disastrous. One cannot help but feel something is not right here. The IMF have records of the disastrous outcome of cutting such subsidies, why would they suggest it now? We should kick them out if we want sound policies.
This is unanimously agreed by the nation that agric subsidies stay with or without IMF/WB asking for their removal and is not subject to any debate any more
I hope PF listens to the plea of the majority on this one
I will add to the number of people who do not support IMF stand on our agriculture policy. IMF and WB are two organisation who have contributed to the failure of Africa with useless policies. EU has been subsidising their agriculture for long time and they have continued. Why has IMF or WB not stopped them. They want us to go back to them to kneel for food like other African countries. Our policy has successed and our people are able to feed. This policy has continued to provide self employment. Please IMF with your sister WB leave our agriculture policy lone and backoff. You are failures and a let down in Africa. You dont want us to progress in anything. See what you have done to Malawi and Zimbabwe who used to be the best in agriculture now they have nothing.
Fertilizer subsidies are a form of social security given to unemployed people in Europe and USA. Our rural people have no any form of income generation activities besides agriculture and its just a good undertaking when government help them through subsidised fertilizer. Europe does this and it is not an issue , why is it and issue when africa does it? What we should be talking about is finding the means of fine tunning the targeted farmers. Let only those who ellegibles benefit from the programme.
IMF guys are not only inhumane but stupid. They cant tell us to reduce on our food basket where masses depend on just to please them. Dont they eat, dont they spend on food and how can they ask us to reduce on spending on food or do they want us to starve to death? Its very ridiculous to heed to such nosense and if govt adheres to such we will also match to State House so that they can give us food if they dont want us to stand on our own and fend for ourselves on our farms. There can be no IMF if there is no food.
Dont we have Zambians working at IMF to give country specific advice? This is really really sickenning you know. These are the same guys telling us that over 70% of Zambia live in absolute poverty at less than a dollar per day. Come on IMF we have read your policies, we have seen them fail and please dont start again. We need our country to mend with regards to poverty. This must not be a political issue but a survival issue for the nation. Consider consequences such as malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, life expectancy, livelihood insecurity in general. this advice is terrible and in bad taste.
I guess they(IMF/WB=West) would not love to see us live improved livelihoods.They are dead silent on the recent issue of extremely low cotton prices that our peasant farmers have been subjected to.
Even today I say to hell with IMF/WB.Let us decide how we spend our money.
I strongly urge GRZ to strengthen ties with China and sign win-win MoUs.
Better try Keynesian,not Adam Smith again. The ruthlessness of the IMF&WB of the 1980s & their bias towards the PARIS CLUB! Pure hypocrisy! How else can u explain their protection of govt subsidies to farmers in Europe &the USA,yet advance abolishment of the same in our countries! The realities of the 1980-1990s IMF-WB structure adjustment program are also as vivid as yesterday.They plan too ahead not for our leaders to see,hope MMD now is wiser to protect the people from foreign policies. During SAP, apart from “mineral wealth” ,they advanced the killing of industries to create “consumer wealth”for the developed’s goods- look at the reality today,damping ground! Next, they want to paralyze Agriculture,so that the shortages of products will be blamed on govt,to justify new entrants
Please can someone avail the link to this advice attributed to the IMF so that those of us in the dark about the actual IMF statement can contribute from an informed position
Same “old” Multilateral Institutions + same “old” economic theories = MORE PEVERTY!
If IMF has a short memory, Zambia, and many so called third world countries, certainly don’t! For who can forget the devastation that IMF draconian and myopic policies of the 80s and 90s towards poor countries in Africa and around the world caused? The classic definition of INSANITY is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” And these policies from the IMF/WB have been carried out before and they have failed miserably everywhere they have been tried. If IMF can point to just one country were such prescriptions of theirs have worked, probably people will start listening to them. But so far their track record on this issue is a miserable one!
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Trying to bring back failed “structural adjustments” of yester years is really unbelievable to say the least. The IMF isn’t even ashamed to suggest such a thing? If the IMF is really serious about such issues, they should start from their own backyard; the USA and Europe—ask rich countries to stop their enormous farm subsidies first! After all, these countries can afford such a move without putting millions of their people into abject poverty.
By the way, asking rich Nations to stop farm subsidies would help poor Nations like Zambia and its cotton farmers to get a fair price for their farm commodities.
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As a result poor govts such as ours will not be forced to provide subsidies. As for now, the commodity market for many African farmers is very distorted mostly by rich countries appetite to prop up their own farmers with huge farm subsidies. As a result, prices are kept artificially low for a poor farmer in countries such as Zambia to compete fairly in the globe commodity market.
It is eliminating such imbalances that the IMF/WB should be focusing on than bullying poor Nations still struggling to fully feed their populations to discontinue farm policies that have brought some sense of food security to these countries.
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For how does the IMF expect a poor farmer in Zambia to compete with US or European farmers who are being propped up by their govts with huge farm subsidies? Let Zambia beg for things like infrustracture funding and medicines, not food!!!!!
IMF can go to hell. the SAP was a disaster, it left all industries stripped off and Zambia began relying on imports of even tomatoes. You recall when USA began sending its GMO yellow maize to Zambia. Honestly we should learn from the past mistakes. Nyanja’s say Mupelete mwanjovu sibapitamo kabili.”
with or without IMF am sure Zambia can survive. The input support programme should continue and just strimline that it is not abused by the rich commercial farmers who also tend to prentend to rob the government by bribing the facilitators to also benefit from it.
IMF AT IT AGAIN…THEY MESSED UP UNIP GRZ & KK, THAT’S ONE OFTHE REASONS ZAMBIA HAD GONE DOWN. NOW THEY SEE POSITIVE GROWTH IN THE ECONOMY AND ARE BACK WITH DISTRCTIVE ADVICES
Zambia learnt a lot of bitter lessons.fellow blogers I salute you all for this solidarity.let IMF/WB hung!vaupuba sitifuna manje!
To start with Subsidies deter growth opportunity. Framers can not grow or expand their operations with the mentality of GRZ subsidies. Yes we need to reduce this dependance and dwell on graduating these farmers to another level. How do we do this? identify those that have passed the sub sidy level and those vulnerable through a systemic approach at village level. Give subsidy to the vulnerable and not those who have the capacity to grow their business. A gradual approach could help farmers to begin to realise their full potential and reduce thid dependance syndrome which is not helping them to grow at all.
WHAT WE NEED IN THIS CONTRY IS THREE THINGS: IMPROVE THE ROIAD INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE RURAL POOR, ENERGY AND ICT. IF THESE THREE ARE TACKLED WITH VIGOUR, WE WILL SEE MORE INVESTMENT
THE GRZ MUST PUT ALL THEIR ENERGY IMPROVING THE ROADS IN THE RURAL AREAS,ENRGY AND ICT as these have a ripple effect. more private sector development will move in and communities around these firms can benefit tremendously by linking them up to these big firms with factories etc. we need to champion the KALEYA sugar model in ZAMBIA. HOWEVER UNLESS THE INFRASTRUCTURE reamians were it is nothing will be achieved in terms of food security. We can only improve the status call of our rural poor by outgrowing schems. Big firms can invest in factories eg MT meru, Eman In luanshya,ZAMANITA and others and let the smallholder grow for the se firms and not the firms growing for themselves. this way our rural poor can benefit from such schems and we will see their lives changing .