Government opposed over the intention to re-introduce crop levy

The Northern Province Cooperatives and Marketing Union has opposed the crop levy that government intends to re-introduce.

In an interview with ZANIS today, Union vice chairman Obed Kampamba said the proposed crop levy will negatively affect the farmers and ‘kill’ the agriculture sector in the country.

Mr Kampamba said currently the cost of crop production especially maize in the country was already very high and that additional charges like the crop levy will make farming as a business unsustainable.

Local government and Housing Minister Emmanuel Chenda said recently that government was considering the possibility of re-introducing the crop levy in order to help councils increase their revenue base.
But Mr Kampamba said the crop levy will further burden the farmers and make others shun farming.

He stated that if government wanted to empower councils, they should aim at increasing the grants and provide other means of raising revenue for the local authorities.

‘In the past, councils used to own farms, they used to run nursery schools and they had houses and Rest houses among other sources of revenue,’’ said MR Kampamba.

Kampamba said with the reduction of the subsidies to the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP), the farmer, especially peasant farmers were already negatively affected.
He advised the government to get back to the basics in order to make farming a viable and attractive business venture again.

‘There is a lot to do in the agriculture sector to replicate the memorable maize bumper harvest of 1988 where the country recorded excess maize that we had to burn some,’’ he said.

Mr Kampamba added that increased funding to the sector was cardinal in reviving programmes that made agriculture tick in the second republic.