About 100 000 metric tonnes of fertliser meant for the 2009/2010 farming season is in the country.
Fertilizer supply companies disclosed the development when they together with other stakeholders in the agriculture sector appeared before the parliamentary committee on lands and agriculture chaired by Kalomo MP, Request Mutanga.
Others that appeared included Agriculture PS Bernard Namachila and his team, officials from the Agriculture Consultative Forum, ACF, Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia, NCZ, and the Zambia Co-operative Federation, ZCF.
Nyiombo Investments have about 40 000 metric tones, Omonia Zambia Fertilser Limited 45 000, Bridgeway 10, 000, Zambian Fertliser 3000 and Castex 2000 metric tonnes of fertliser.
Nyiombo Investment Managing Director, Morris Jangulo, disclosed that the company is further expecting about 35 000 metric tones of fertliser to arrive in the country by next month.
Mr. Jangulo has, however, attributed the late delivery of the commodities to farmers, to late tendering process and implementation of delivery of input modalities by government to farmers.
He observed that last year, the tendering process was opened by July while the delivery of fertliser was being done in November.
He said Nyiombo had by August last year positioned its quantity of fertilizer for delivery to farmers.
And Omonia Managing Director, Bertie Serfontein, challenged other suppliers to bid for the supply of fertilizer under the Fertliser Support Programme, FSP.
He said the country has an open biding system , which other suppliers should make use of other than complaining about alleged uneven level playing field.
Earlier, ACF Co-ordinator, Hyde Haantuba, proposed for the adoption of the Voucher system which he said has worked well in Malawi.
He said the system would remove government from the tendering process of fertilizer as the suppliers would have to deal directly with the farmers.
Mr. Haantuba added that the system would also reduce the cost of transportation on the part of government as suppliers would be required to deliver the commodity to satellite depots.
But the ZCF proposed for the review of the bottlenecks in the FSP so as to strength the programme.
They, further, proposed for the ‘exist strategy’ where farmers would only be supported under the programme for two years after which they should be linked to banks.
ZCF Managing Director, Mary Ngoma, said the federation was ready to work with government to identify viable farmers that should be benefiting under the programme.
And Mr Namachila blamed the poor performance of the FSP on dishonest Co-operatives that were selected to assist in the administering of the programme.
Mr. Namachila, who admitted that the programme though has succeeded to some extent, faced a number of challenges.
He cited the targeting of farmers, late delivery of farming inputs, in appropriate utilization of farming inputs, lack of extension service to educate farmers as some of the challenges.
He, however, stated that government was looking at the voucher system applicable in Malawi to be used as a pilot project in the country.
He said if the programme succeeds, government would consider it, which would eventually replace the FSP.
He added that government has this year recruited about 1700 extension workers that have been posted to various parts of the country.
ZANIS/MKM/ENDS/SJK
Please make sure RB does not donate half of it to Zimbabwe!!!
This is good from govt BUT whats the total demand???? otherwise good start to talk about it now.
Its talk, talk ,talk—misappropriate,– blah blah ,dah dah dah, then export the produce to Zimbabwe on hungry stomachs…..
OK the fertilizer is there and the plan is in place BUT are you going to pull it through?
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not to put it in a fruit salad.
#4 Iwe Nine Chale walasa but where do you get those lines from kanshi? Awe you Zambians are funny mwe. Anyway this is the only way you can keep up with these politics, with some humor.
Nine Chale naeve hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Fertiliser iyi, awe mwe. No comment for now. Kuti walufyanya!
# 4 Nine Chale ha ha ha ha ha ha i have been asking myself what a fruit salad is. ha ha ha is it a mixer of fruits and the you add a tomato or a mixer of vegetables then you add fruit.
What is is the status of NCZ if priavte companies like Ominia and Miombo have imported fertilizer for 2009/10 farming season. This marks the end of NCZ, it would have amde sense if it was made to import raw materials now to process fertilizer for sale and distribution to the private comapnies. The voucher systems works well in Malawi and cannot work in Zambia as we have pipo charged with responsibilities who are not straight forward. Any thing they do, there must be some cuts. Malawians to some extent are honest than Zambians. FSP is good scheme but end of the day fertilizer ends up in neihbouring countries. Lets get more organised as a nation. To date small scale farmers nationwide are not yet sure the floor price for their maize, the next thing they would prefer to sale to Malawi etc.
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